Snail's Pace

Have you ever had a class pet? Not a 'teacher's pet', but an animal in the class? I haven't, until today. (Unless you count the fact that my students this year call every fly that enters our room "Bob" inspired by Sandra Boyton's Fifteen Animals.)

This morning two of my girls were carrying the lid to a small cardboard box with, what at first glance appeared to be a slug. (I'm from the NW. What do you want from me?) It turned out to be a snail.

I decided to not call any attention to it. They had specials at the beginning of the day and I was curious to see what they would do with said snail. Without a word to me, they covered the box by taping a piece of paper around the edges and poked holes in the top. They headed to music and then P.E.

On the way back from P.E. they asked me if I happened to notice how the snail had done. I told them it had snuck out of the box, climbed over the printer, and to the ledge of the open window, about three feet from where they left it. They weren't sure whether or not to believe me.

At snack there was much discussion about the state of the snail currently; dead or alive.

At lunch they realized that there was a hole in the paper and started grilling their classmates to see who was messing with "Sammy", as the snail had been named. It said so right on the box now.

They came to discover that Sammy got hungry and likes paper! I explained that he was, in fact, trying to get to the open window.

Sammy left at the end of the day. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

 

Now that my slice is written I get to enter my own 'snail's pace' as internet in this country is ridiculously slow. On a good night it takes me 30 minutes to load "Two Writing Teachers", load the links to three blogs, load comments to the blogs I have read, and post my own link. And that is when the internet is 'fast'. I have not had a night during this challenge that I haven't had to load pages at least three times and watch the magic spinning wheel, entranced, trying to remember what 'real' internet is like. We'll see what tonight brings.