New "Students"

A few new students have arrived in the classroom.

I use the term "students" lightly.

There was a dead mouse one morning. 

A mouse had gotten into some of Nora's snacks a few weeks ago. She switched to putting them into plastic bins, but the mouse was brazen enough to crawl down the back wall a couple of times during class. 

Some of the kids are messy. One student, S, and her friend, A, had left popcorn on the floor without picking up. I kicked it under the cabinet where the mousetrap was, because the custodians seem to clean every other week.

I told S she'd kill the mouse with her messy eating.

Mouse sightings and messes meant the kids weren't going to get free snacks in class anymore (Plus, Nora was trapped overseas!).

The very next morning there was a snake at my door. 

I'm assuming he'd come into the school looking for mice. 

My first thought was, "What moron tried to drop a plastic snake at my door to scare me?" My next thoughts were, "Wait a minute, the kids aren't here yet," and "It moved!"

I'm not a snake handler, so I used a folder to scoop little guy into a bin. I offered him to several science teachers, but nobody wanted to adopt that day.

I took the snake out back to let him free before students came in. I'd considered keeping him to show everyone, but he would've escaped the moment my back was turned. As is, he clung to the box when I tried to drop him in the grass (Those climbing skills are probably how he got into the school!).

Lo and behold the next week another mouse appeared. This one was smaller. I thought it was a baby. First it showed up in my planning period. I had a student see it, but I thought I'd scared it back into hiding. 

Nope. It ran across the front of the classroom. One of my big kids, M, freaked out a little. I was able to get a quick video of the mouse hiding amongst the stuff around my desk.

I emailed the head custodian, Trey. He said he'd come up with a few traps. Meanwhile, one of my braver students, Y, decided to setup his own version of a mousetrap! 

Trey came up with two traps. I put them down where the mouse had been running and before Trey left the room the mouse got stuck in one. I know Trey hates the glue traps and he had a look on his face as he carried the rodent off.

Class got back to normal......ish. I mentioned there was a mouse under the chair of one loud kid, a few kids must've been tuckered out from the excitement because all they wanted to do was sleep, etc.