Field Trip!

Well, sort of.

Myra, Jen's sister, is a paraeducator at one of the elementary schools, and she talks up Jen's chinchilla babies to all of her students. This past week, Myra asked if Jen could bring some of the chinchillas into the school because the kindergarteners were learning about animals and conservation (they were also doing projects involving wood, and since our critters love to chomp on the wood, we thought we'd bring some before-and-afters for them!).

After much thought, we decided on bringing only half of the Perry 12, but brought a good mix: we brought Mommy Violet with Baby Emerson, Boo and Scout (on their first solo trip without mom) and Calvin and Hobbes. All of them did very well with the kids, and with the exception of Scout having an accident while Jen and another student were holding him, it went off without a hitch.

What started out being a small task ended up being quite a bit more! At first we thought it would be a few minutes of passing the chinchillas around, but it turned out to be a bit more. Originally it was just the three kindergarteners. In all, we saw 7 different classrooms and spent between 20 and 30 minutes with each class, answering the student's questions about the animals. The best questions were "How do you know a boy and a girl are different?" and "Why are their poops so small?" Jen's answers: "You look at their bottoms" and "Because they have small butts". Both were sufficient for the kids.

It was so much fun going to the class with some of our gang, that we hope to one day be able to do the same thing again. It brought back Jen's memories of wanting to be a teacher and to teach little ones, so she may keep going with that someday.