Princess "Peach" Ariel of Sunshine Day School

 I can't exactly remember how or why, but sometime last month the children decided they wanted a hamster. It just so happens that one of our 4s has a hamster that had 13 babies.  Well, one thing led to another, and we have a hamster. It was so neat to get to choose our hamster.

Once we got her, she needed a name.  We took a good look at her and each child suggested a name.  Here are just a few that we had to choose from.

Superman, Ariel, Dot, Princess Pea, Princess, Batman, Spider man, Boo, Fluffy, Rapunzel, etc.

  14 kids, 12 suggestions, mainly because several were in agreement to name her batman.  

The children decided that Peach needed a name card , just like all of the other kids.  We worked together to sound out the letters in her name.  We easily got the /p/ and the /e/ sounds, but needed a little help with the /ch/.  It just so happens that we have a student whose name begins with Ch, so it was a perfect opportunity to introduce that letter sound combination.

We needed to narrow our choices, so we decided to vote on the names that matched the gender of our pet.

This was a perceived as a great injustice to the boys, but it was the only sensible way to do it.  

We voted and it came down to Ariel and Princess Peach.  We ended up deadlocked in a tie

7 votes for Ariel, 7 votes for Princess Peach, and one write in for... Batman.  

So, I am pleased to introduce you to Princess Peach Ariel of Sunshine Day School (Peach for short).  She is just a baby, so she hasn't gotten all of her fur yet.  We are excited about watching her grow and change throughout the year!

To give you scale, she it perched on her tiny food bowl, nibbling on a cracker stick from one of those cheese dip snack packs.  

The rest of center time this day was spent decorating Peach's home and making it a happy place for her.  I sure do love these kids and their precious little hearts and minds.