Tortoise Troubles...

What a crazy day!  (I know I say that a lot, but it really was.)

The day started out normal enough, but right before lunch, two people from an area agriculture group stopped by school to donate some farming themed books to our school.  Our class was the lucky group chosen to have a picture taken for the newspaper.  We all lined up behind a table in our room, books displayed in front and cheesy grins in place.

One of the boys had trouble focusing all day.  First I caught him sitting at his desk staring off into space, not accomplishing anything.  At the time, I was meeting with a different student about her reading book, so I didn't notice him for about ten minutes.  When I finally noticed, our conversation went something like this...

"Mr. 6th grader, what are you working on?"
he looked at me, "Nothing!"
"Hmm, well you should be working on something."
"But I'm done with my spelling."
"Why don't you play Bananagrams or Scrabble Flash if you're finished?"
"I've played those games like a million times!"
"Then why did you choose to do Word Work?"
no answer

Finally he started playing Scrabble Flash and he seemed to settle down until this afternoon during art.  I caught him painting his hand orange and brown and red.  He said he was "making a turkey."  He then had to go wash his hands and was done painting for the day; of course, he didn't care.  Then everyone got distracted by the terrarium I bought this weekend for our soon-to-be class pet.

This weekend, after I dropped my sister off at school, I made the trek to Pet Expo and searched for tortoise supplies.  The person I talked to said it would be a good idea to get the tank all set up and then get the tortoise, that way it doesn't have to be in the cold so long.  I wanted to compare prices a bit, so I drove over to Petco and looked around.  They were a little cheaper, but they didn't give teacher discounts.  I did find one Russian tortoise for sale.  (Pet Expo was all out of Russians, which are small and easier to take care of).  When I saw the tortoise, I decided to buy the supplies from Pet Expo, set it up, and come back for the tortoise next weekend.  The person working told me they don't normally hold pets for people, but in my case (since it is for a classroom), they'd make an exception.

So I trundled back over to Pet Expo to get my tank supplies.  When all was said and done, I had all the supplies and the teacher discount, but I forgot to use my gift certificate!  I've had it hanging out in my wallet since before Christmas!  Argh! I wanted to kick myself.  The manager tried to figure out a way to use it, but nothing worked.  But I figured I would probably buy bedding or something from them sooner or later, so I could just use it then... if I remembered.

Today, I got a phone call from someone working at Pet Expo letting me know our school was set up in their database now so we automatically get a discount.  I asked if they had any tortoises come in since I stopped by and they said yes!  They had two Russian tortoises and would be able to save one for me!  So now I'm going to have to call Petco and cancel my hold on the tortoise.

When my kids found out I was going to pick up our tortoise this week, they all wanted to come.  I didn't want to take time out of school, so I said it would be an optional field trip after school on Friday.  A permission note is going home tomorrow... we'll see if anyone still wants to come if it's not taking up school time.  Now we just need to get the tank set up!

One of my students was supposed to bring in a 5 gal. pail to mix up the dirt (it's in a cube... just add water!), but he said all his buckets have holes in them.  So two of his classmates are going to try to bring one in tomorrow.  Hopefully one of the two of them will remember.  One girl formed a lean-to out of clay for our pet to hide behind.  We just need to let it dry and then paint it.  Someone else found pictures to tape to the back of the aquarium so our tortoise doesn't bonk his head against the glass.  We still need food and water dishes and possibly some decorations to stick on the side of the tank (tortoises like to burrow, so anything we put on the floor is going to get moved around).