Not everyone in Dana Cornelius’ third-grade class at Peebles Elementary School gets fed a fish on his or her birthday.
But Yertle does.
Yertle the turtle is Cornelius’ class pet.
And speaking of birthdays, he’ll be turning 25 on Sept. 11.
“Yertle brings so much excitement to our third-grade classroom. We sing to him and feed him fish on his birthday each year. On the helper chart, each student gets to have a week where they feed him,” said Cornelius, who got Yertle in 2001.
“When I see students that I had 20-plus years ago, they still ask about Yertle the turtle. He is truly a wonderful school memory for many generations,” said Cornelius, a teacher at Peebles for 27 years.
A more furrier option resides in Kelly Shute’s second-grade class at Hosack Elementary School, with Ginny Pig and Sage, who are 4 and 5 years old, respectively.
However, her class pet journey began more than five years ago with two small hamsters for the Hosack students.
“The students adored reading texts about (children’s book characters) ‘Humphrey’ and ‘Ralph S. Mouse’ and formed real-life connections between our pets and the ones in the stories they loved,” she said. “We also enjoyed using our science and math skills creating humane traps and doing research on best methods for enticing our little escape artists back to their Habitrail home.”
Life, though, was short for the hamsters. So, as fate would prevail, a local family was relocating and gifted two sweet guinea pigs, Ginny and her daughter, Squeaks.
“The students read about how to take care of the animals. They volunteered to clean and feed them, and even offered to take them home over breaks. Some students have never interacted with live animals. We learn together as a class how to be gentle with living creatures, to speak softly and possibly be rewarded with an attention seeking chirp or squeal, and we get to observe the relationships between the animals as they grow and change,” said Shute, who’s been at the school for seven years.
Unfortunately, Squeaks passed away a few days before school ended in 2023. While it was unexpected and sad, it provided another learning opportunity, according to Shute.
“All living things grow, change and eventually die,” she said. “Our class grew even closer as we discussed and related to our peers’ individual losses and our class loss. We learned about how guinea pigs are social creatures, bond to their humans and each other, and how best to support Ginny as she was missing her baby.”
They found Sage, a guinea pig who recently lost her sister.
“After a trial week, Ginny and Sage moved in together, and the happy squeaks and chirps began again,” said Shute.
Two tortoises, Taylor and Travis, also joined Shute’s class last year. They aid in teaching about life cycles, animal adaptations, classification, social and emotional learning, responsibility, compassion, understanding and empathy, she said.
Hosack second-grade teacher Amy DeVenzio didn’t say what birthday snack Buttercup the ball python gets, but her students are certainly interested in and amazed about the snake.
DeVenzio said her students named Buttercup when she brought it in more than 20 years ago.
“I use Buttercup in second grade to reinforce our study of animal groups,” said DeVenzio, who has been at Hosack for 31 years.
Buttercup is just another classroom friend with cool features, according to the teacher.
“The students like to touch her and are usually amazed at how she feels,” she said.
Natalie Beneviat is a Trib Total Media contributing writer.