The Pre-K class has officially launched their Pets Project. To get the Hoot Owls thinking about what a pet is, the teachers posed the question: “Can Maggie have a hippo as a pet?”
This simple question sparked a flurry of ideas. Students quickly pointed out that a hippo would need a really big house, a lot of water (maybe a pool!), and a door big enough for it to fit through. One thoughtful student even suggested that Maggie would need to be a zookeeper with her own zoo! From there, the class began to wonder — what actually makes an animal a pet, and what makes it a zoo animal?
Building the Project
In every Project Approach Unit, students begin by mapping what they know and what they want to learn using a Topic Web. This living chart helps track their growing understanding as they explore through research, activities, and expert visits.
Alongside the topic web, the class also created a Wonder Wall — a special space where students’ questions and curiosities are collected. These “wonders” help guide the project and shape future lessons and activities.
One of the first big questions to emerge was: “How do we take care of different animals?” To start exploring that idea, students dove into the question, “How do we take care of a turtle?”
Learning Through Exploration
Through research and observation, students discovered that turtles have different needs depending on their type. Aquatic turtles and box turtles, for example, require very different homes. The class looked at photos of real turtle habitats and then created their own visual charts, drawing and labeling the items a turtle needs to stay healthy and happy.
Guest Expert Insights
To help deepen their understanding of pets versus wild animals, the class met biologist Taylor Rubin via Zoom. Taylor, a former zoologist at Zoo Atlanta who now studies urban wildlife, helped the students define two key groups:
- Domestic animals – animals that have lived alongside humans for a long time and rely on people for care, like dogs, cats, horses, and chickens.
- Wild animals – animals that can survive and care for themselves in nature.
When the students revisited their original question about hippos, Taylor helped them see why a hippo can’t be a pet. Hippos need to eat about 150 pounds of grass per day, live in large pods of 10–30 hippos, and require plenty of water to swim in. Clearly, even the most dedicated pet owner couldn’t meet those needs!
The class loved learning from a real scientist, and they now have an even clearer understanding of what makes an animal a pet — and why Maggie’s hippo dream might have to stay imaginary for now!
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