Sunday, April 15, 2007

Day Three: Under Seige


Today is the third day of our sofa being occupied by the pet rat Junior. This is causing me some mental stress as well as some marital discord.

I'm all for picking up the sofa, turning it upside down, and shaking the little bugger out. However, my dear husband, being the animal-loving Franciscan he is, doesn't want to cause poor Junior any distress.

Twice, the younger children have caught Junior, but only for a second. They let her go when she fought to get away. I guess she really loves my sofa.

So, I've decided to do what any good self-respecting homeschooler would do: create a unit study.

Each child will be assigned to design and build a humane trap. Grades and Carnegie credits will be given for the successful completion of this project. The learning goals include planning, architectural design, trigonometry, working as a team, rat psychology, and Christian love for all of God's creatures even icky pet rats.

Trips will be made to the hardware store and library. Surely, google searches will take place. I wonder if Wikipedia has any articles on the humane capture of rats.

This is what homeschooling is all about. Let the fun begin.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maureen,

This rat saga is cracking me up! Don't you have another homeschool conference to escape to and let dh handle this animal-loving challenge on his own? I'd offer to leave him home with all the kids to help....a team-building challenge.

Maureen said...

Yep, I'll be in Milwaukee a week from Saturday. Gosh, I hope Junior is nabbed by then!