Teacher SCREAMS in terror!

On Wednesday, I went back to school. Track break was over, and I was sad (who wouldn't be?!) I got a preview of what my classroom would be like. Two of the other 3rd grade teachers had received both their crayfish and black beetles for our science kits. UGH! The crayfish were about 2-3 inches long. They arrive in a box, with the crayfish in bags inside. Each teacher received 12. Yikes, mine were to arrive in the MAIL any day.

On Thursday, I walked back in the school to hear the news that my box had arrived and was in my mailbox, AT AN ANGLE! I grabbed the box, let them even themselves back out, and headed to my classroom. I put the box on the table outside in the great room. My class was working on an assignment, so I went into the great room to prepare their new home. I broke the seal on the tape. It was a very small box, I would say about the size of a ream of paper, if not a tad bit bigger. I didn't want to jerk them as I opened the box, so I kind of grasped it and was pretty dang close to the box. Box opens, teacher SCREAMS, closes box, and jumps back. 4th grade class next door starts hysterically laughing. I ended up being the topic of choice at the dinner table for many. They were NOT contained in ANYTHING?! Inside this brown box, with holes, was plain old moss with 13 GIGANTIC crayfish just loose. When I opened the box a bunch of them started moving out at me. Ok, the other teachers received these small little crayfish. Remember? They were 2-3 inches long. Mine were these 5-7 inch monsters! All shoved into this tiny little box with no water, just moist moss. Once I calmed down, I grabbed one of the other teachers to help me transfer them to their new home.

This morning I came into school to find out that one had died sometimes since school let out yesterday. Another third grade teacher had seen it and cleaned it out for me already. Leigha LOVED looking and playing with them. I guess another teacher let her poke around at them to see them move (with the plastic spoon of course.)




Later in the day I prepared the second aquarium. There was just no way that all 12 would be able to stay in one tank. The teacher that would be doing the observations with us, came out to help me move half of them over to the new tank. That is when we found out that I am a MURDERER! There were 7 more DEAD crayfish. We are down to 5! We were trying to speculate what happened to them. The only thing we can think of is that the two other teachers had theirs arrive in water. Mine had NO water, just moist moss. They were sent Fed Ex 2 day, so that means they were without water for 2 days. That's the only answer we can think of. I am just afraid that when I walk into the school on Monday, my last 5 will be dead too.

The other teacher threw away 6 crayfish and decided to freeze the 7th. It was really neat to look at the underside of the belly. I don't think we would be able to do that, this closely, with an alive one. This is the first year with these new kits. We were supposed to receive snails, but got beetles instead. Mine are due to arrive next week. LUCKY ME!