School Visit

[lars5277]

I recently got asked by my sons preschool to bring my herps in for a visit. It is a pretty small school probably less than 100 3-5 yr olds. I will be bringing in all my herps. The school is sending out permission slips to the parents for thier children to be able to pet the animals. We are bringing a big bottle of hand sanitizer for the children to wash thier hands with. I am going to hold Salina and let the kids touch her back one at a time, Easa the Iggy will be on a leash and not touched by the children at all since she is mean, and the Breadys will probably be pet by the children too. I will be seeing the children in groups of 10-15. My question is has anyone here done this before, and do they have anytips for me?. I am pretty good with kids teaching Boy/Girl Scouts and church activities. If the animals seems to get stressed I will cage them up. One of the school helpers is my neighbor, and thought it would be a good idea for the visit.

[Shelby]

I have done this a lot.. it is a blast! (depends on the kiddos though.. lol)

Preschoolers need to be shown how to pet the animals correctly. They often don't realise that mr snake doesn't like to be pet like mr doggie at home. Keep reptile heads away from them, as children love to grab/poke faces.

Make sure that they know that they must stay seated until they are called up by you. Especially since you have animals that you don't wish them to touch. Some kids just stand up and come on over with arms stretched out ready to pet the animal (really to get bit though in the ig's case!)

Be prepared for lots of questions, (some being very silly, and others having nothing to do with reptiles!)

Write down a few interesting facts about each animal to share with the kids. They love to hear about snakes shedding, eating (they often ask about pooping.. lol) etc.

Have fun!

[lars5277]

I will be briefing the children about the animals before the petting is done. I am researching them to find out more about them to teach the kids. The lady that works there swore her 4yr old daughter was scared of snakes, til she saw her hold Salina. My house is always full of neighborhood kiddies asking, holding and petting. About the only thing I keep off limits to the children is the Iggy. I also know children can ask some very colorful questions. I usually do 3-4 things a year involving activites with small children. The military likes it when you get involved in the community. I always have fun for the most part.

I did have one very hard day though teaching a class of third graders. My lesson for that day was the newspaper and how it affects a community. Being very hectic at work I barely had time to buy it much less read it before breifing the kids, but I am pretty good off the cuff. Keep in mind I was in uniform. The cover story was about a local soldier who died in Iraq, one very astute boy recongized that as his fathers unit and asked me if his daddy would be coming home. Well I had to change the subject before I starting crying in front of him, so I did a quick flip to the sports page. There is absolutely nothing that could be bad on the sports page that I couldn't handle, right? WRONG!!! It was the Monday after Super Bowl Sunday. Needless to say Janet Jacksons breasts got the childrens attention. So I had to try to explain that. Was my worst experience ever with teaching children, but I didn't go to jail, I was invited back, and the teacher said I handled two very bad situations rather well. This should be a walk in the park for me.

[Shelby]

Yeah.. hope it goes smoothly.

[lars5277]

I got a question. Salina is in a shed right now. I just noticed her blue eyes two days ago. I am thinking school is probably a bad idea this week if she isn't finished yet. I think it would be bad moving her and driving her and having kids peek in at her too. Am I being too cautious?

[Shelby]

Yeah.. probably not. Don't want to stress her out. Just do it another time.

[lars5277]

I am going to call the school tomorrow and pus it off for at least two weeks. I also hope to have my new HO RTB by that date. I was originally supposed to bring 3 different types of herps, but if Salina can't come the only thing I could bring is my dragons.

[lars5277]

There you go guys. The project went very well today. I saw about 50-75 kids, and they all loved it. A few kids were scred, but most took the time to pet all the animals. Salina was a perfect angel with the kiddies. She only tensed up once on me. There were 4 kids trying to pet her at once. she didn't even tense up when a little girl pinched he tail twice. I had a lot of fun today.

[Shelby]

Very cool! Glad it went well.

[gncz73]

last year my sons teacher ask me if i would mine bringing my snake and tort in. so i did and the kids loved it some were scared some were a little exited but they all love it i even took my digitel camera in and each kid got a chance to hold a snake of there choice or the tort an have there pic taken with it. and all i did was talk about there care and they ask what did i feed them and my son told every mice before i said a word and the kids screamed. but it was fun for all