Recently, the children in School age 1 at RisingOaks Early Learning | John Sweeney have shown a growing interest in learning about household pets. Every day for our fun fact activity, we have researched a different pet! It all started with a single fish bowl decorating activity and from there, the children decided that house pets and animals were going to hold their attention. To be able to expand their curiosity on different house pets, my co-worker Emily asked all parents to send in a photo of their pet or a pet of a close family/friend that they love. This really triggered their interest to be able to stand in front of the class and discuss their own pets from home really brought out their caring and loving side towards animals. The children really enjoyed learning about everyone else’s pets and seeing their excitement when they got to talk about them to the class! All our friends asked questions and showed in depth interest in this activity. In order to continue to feed their curiosity on animals, we have been creating habitats and exploring different craft activities to show what all our friends believe certain house pets enjoy doing. We have printed out outlines of house pet habitats such as rabbits, birds, turtles and more! We then supply typical objects you would find alongside these animals and our friends get to decorate their habitats as they picture them. Once we learned about the variety of habitats each pet could have, we dove into additional facts such as veterinarian care and responsibilities of pet care.
Due to their sudden and growing interest in animals, School age 1 decided that all of our love for animals should be channeled into something very beneficial; a humane society donation drive! Families and friends in all different rooms in the centre have been so eager to participate. In our lobby, we have displayed a board created by Emily which includes the pictures of all School age 1’s pets, with their name and who they belong to. Our friends have all loved getting to walk by pictures of their own animals every day as well as being able to see all the different pets their friends own as well. Beside the School age 1 pet board is our donation table, there is a sign explaining the cause of what we are doing and asking those who are able to donate what they can.
Most people have a memory of a favorite pet from childhood. If they didn’t have one of their own, they might have thoughts of a grandparent’s, neighbor’s, or friend’s pet they loved at some point in their lives. It may make us think of how cute they are when we look at them, how soft they might feel when we cuddle them, or any other countless memories of interacting with animals as kids. We wanted to make sure our kids had the opportunity to share their experiences with others about how much they enjoy being in the presence of their animal. Since our project started we have noticed an increase in desire to learn about animals and have any lingering questions answered. School age 1 decided to run the Humane Society drive until the end of February. At that time, the educators will drop off the donation to the Kitchener Waterloo Humane Society located at 250 Riverbend Dr, Kitchener.
