The ones that kids take turns bringing home each weekend. What’s if the kid is allergic? What if their parents say no? Who buys the food? Who cleans the cage during the week? What if it escapes? What if it dies? What if it turns into that giant radioactive hamster from that one Powerpuff Girls episode? What if the kid doesn’t feed them? Having a class pet doesn’t seem fair to the animals.
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Class pets are common, but they are not shared around the class. They are generally the teachers pet who has a home in the classroom. Often they are used for instructional purposes as well.
I have never seen a class pet that students can take home, that may have been a thing 50 years ago but not anymore.
I went to school in the 90s and I don’t think we ever had a class pet. It was the plot of a lot of tv though.
Class pets are more common on grade schools. Additionally, they tend to be things like fish or hamsters. A class pet who is a dog or cat would be very strange.
In the end class pets are basically always “owned” by the teacher. Sometimes in such a case a teacher may have a student take home the pet over a weekend. Obviously students who are allergic or whose parents refuse are typically exempted. In fact if a particular student were seriously allergic it is likely that the “pet” would be removed or otherwise not made an issue.
We had a class pet in 5th grade. It was a turtle and my teacher would let us take it home on the weekends. Nothing bad happened.
> What if it turns into that giant radioactive hamster from that one Powerpuff Girls episode?
My class hatched baby chicks one year. And we live in the TMI evacuation zone, so there’s that.
In Kindergarten, we had this big Austrian substitute teacher who brought in a ferret as a class pet. He was really sweet, we would bring him with us during fire drills and it helped stopped a kidnapping
A teacher at my elementary school had a hissing cockroach and a ferret as a pet. Idk how she had a ferret since they are illegal to have in California. And you couldn’t bring them home. Bring a pet home from class isn’t a thing anymore.
We had a couple hamsters. The school bought the food and we all took turns feeding and watering them.
We didn’t clean the cage I think the teacher did that.
They’re pretty common. My eight year old’s 1-3 grade class has all had pets. My sons preschool is a farm so they have pets ranging from mice to a donkey to chickens.
Only one of my classes had a pet. She was a hedgehog, we named her Sonica, it was 1994.
It isn’t that common especially to take the animals home.
If the kid is allergic, they don’t handle the animal. If their parents say no, they don’t take the animal home. The teacher would usually buy the food and give enough for the weekend. The students and teacher cleans and takes care of the animal, usually the teacher is doing most of the work though. If it escapes, you try to find it, if you can’t, it’s gone. They may get a new animal though. If it dies, same as if it was lost.
What also isn’t fair is animals being locked in a small cage in pet stores. It is what it is.
Again, class pets aren’t a common thing (beyond elementary school) and it’s less common to have students bring the animal home.
I’ve never seen or heard of a pet that kids would take home. One of the 2nd grade teachers in my elementary school had guinea pigs in the classroom, but they stayed in the classroom.
Never heard of this wtf
Back around 2005 my daughter brought home the class beta fish for the summer break. She wanted to bring home the terrarium full of hissing cockroaches, that was a BIG no!
Never had one
In Elementary school they are common. I do not recall ever having one once I left Elementary school though.
Definitely more common in elementary schools. My class had geckos in 4th grade. Kids don’t always take turns bringing them home, i don’t think a lot of people would actually be able to do that and properly care for it. The teachers take care of it normally.
We had a fish tank in 6th grade.
Class pets aren’t that frequent, and I’ve never seen a class pet actually taken home by a kid. In terms of allergies they’re often managed by the kid (if you’re allergic to the class Guinea pig, don’t pick it up) and the teacher (cleaning frequently. That being said I 100% was that kid who was allergic to the rodents and still pet them and held them and I had to go home one time cause the visiting class Guinea gave me hives.
In middle-school (6th-8th) grade we had a bigass class guinea pig named “Bam Bam” that you could sign up and for a weekend take home with your parents permission. I still remember Bam Bam slamming his water bottle against his aquarium wall all night long drinking.
This was in the 00’s and I don’t know if it’s still a thing. It was pretty cool though because it was meant to teach you the responsibility of feeding and taking care of something living. Nobody would dare take it and do something stupid because it was beloved to every single kid in the class and ran around the floor while we learned biology.
I ended up taking a class pet home and keeping her forever. 😂 Teacher gave her to me since I just loved her so much and the kids weren’t great to her. I miss that sweet little guinea.
I wouldn’t say they are uncommon, but I also think that people taking them home is less than less common. Usually the teacher is the primary caregiver because people can be psycho and they want to make sure the animal is cared for.
I remember Nibbler the gerbil and Paris and Nicole, the mice. We also had tadpoles in the third grade.
No one has to take the pet home. Families that are interested schedule turns. We had the class Guinea pig for a 2 week break once. It really was very easy.
We had a stuffed animal in kindergarten but that’s it.
I was never in a class that had one.
Sophomore year in Biology there was a Guinea Pig. It was just kinda there, we didn’t do anything with it. I recall the teacher asking for volunteers to take it home over the long breaks (Winter, Mid-Winter, Spring). I have no idea what happened on the weekends (though it probably would have been fine on it’s own). This would have been in 2009.
We had one in every grade in elementary school
Some of my grade school teachers had guinea pigs and fish. My 5th grade teacher let people bring the guinea pig home over the weekend (with parent permission) and you had to feed it, clean the cage, etc. I found it helpful because it taught me the responsibility that comes with having a pet as at that age I didn’t do much in terms of chores with the family dog.
They’re semicommon, but some classes don’t have the students take them home. Sometimes the teachers take the pets with them and sometimes they drop in on the weekend to take care of them.
We had a hamster in 3rd grade and you had to get written permission from a parent to take it home for the weekend
I’ve had fish and turtles in class. The teacher takes care of it. All I really remember is that it was just something to look at during free time.
class pets are more common in elementary school they are often fish or hampsters and sometimes a snake like a corn snake or a ball python most of the time they dont get taken home and they belong to the teacher
My son’s preschool class had a Guinea pig and we volunteered to bring it home for spring break in March 2020. Damn thing lived with us for 18 months until school reopened.
I had two. My 8th grade science teacher had chinchillas named Charlie and I forgot the other lil dude’s name. They would scatter around while we took tests but they were the cutest things. Charlie was chill but the other one hated being held and we took Charlie out of his cage sometimes and let him chill on the tables with us.