This was my second year teaching fifth grade and a lot of the things I set up with this class continued throughout my next twenty years of teaching. This is the year I started collecting classroom pets which required me to create classroom rules that kept our classroom from smelling and behaving like a zoo. I found ways to incorporate the pets into academics, classroom management and as a tool to teach the students responsibility.
We also started the schoolyard habitat that became an exciting and worthwhile feature until the day I retired! I learned as much (if not more) about teaching from this group of students as I am sure they learned from me about animals, nature, technology, community outreach, and grant writing.
We had a website on myschoolonline which unfortunately no longer exists. I am including pictures of the students and here is a link to the creation of our habitat.