School Mouse

Let me begin by telling you what to say if anyone says education funding needs to be cut. My school is out of glue. We're out of glue for the rest of the year. Our last day is in the middle of June. In my district we now only get our rooms vacuumed and garbage taken out twice a week.

With a room full of 6 year olds it can get pretty messy. With a room full of 6 year olds and some mice it gets much more messy than I care for.

Yes, we have a mouse. I had a giant bag of sunflower seeds that I use for art/science projects stored under the sink. After finding a few seeds on the floor by the sink I opened the doors and found about a 3 inch thick bed of discarded sunflower seeds and my roll of paper towels chewed up. Then I saw the mouse running amok in the mess/nest. Luckily most of my class was on the playground but enough students saw it to get Mouse Fever and infect the rest of my class.

Mouse Fever is not in any way like hantavirus. Mouse Fever is when you trick people into thinking there is a mouse around when it's actually hiding out in your art project.

I decided to use this as a teaching opportunity. Coincidentally "mice" is one of our spelling words this week. I got "Town Mouse, City Mouse" out after lunch today and started reading. In the middle of the story one of the girls screamed and said, "Mouse!" I thought she had a case of Mouse Fever, even though she ran across the room and almost started crying. After she sat back down I began reading again. Another student started shouting, "Mouse!" This time the mouse ran out from behind a shelf causing my class to scream hysterically and jump onto their desks. All I could do was sit there laughing, chaos swirling around me, until the mouse found its hole to hide away in and my class calmed down. I convinced them that reading the story had brought the mouse to life.

We already have a class pet, so I guess it's time to get maintenance involved. Sorry little mouse!

P.S. Portrait at the White Rat is by Anne-Julie Aubry.