Grant program helps librarian purchase pets for Lummis Elementary

The newest little ones to join a class at Lummis Elementary School didn’t pass kindergarten last year, but they’re helping students learn a love for reading.

The two newcomers are Abbey and Spectra, sister hamsters so small that they both fit in the palm of Jill Delaney, the librarian at Lummis, 9000 Hillpointe Road. Delaney acquired the critters last year through Pets in the Classroom, an educational grant program that provides financial support to teachers with limited funding to purchase and maintain small animals in the classroom.

The program began in August 2013.

“I was at PetSmart with my daughters, Isabella and Camille, (now 7 and 11), and (the store) had little fliers advertising it,” Delaney said of the program. “So I applied, and they told me I got it. I wasn’t sure I would. … I usually just spend my own money; you know how teachers do.”

The creatures are Roborovski hamsters and occupy a corner of the school library, their two-tier plastic cage perched atop a table in a corner near the computers. Delaney takes them home each weekend.

“I think it makes the library a warmer, happier place to be,” Delaney said. “And sometimes kids who have a little bit of trouble with their behavior, this might be an incentive: ‘Do a good job and you’ll (get to read to the animals).’ ”

Per health codes, the children cannot touch the hamsters or feed them, she said.

Six-year-old twins Brenna and Brooke Bolinger recalled what it was like to be introduced to Abbey and Spectra.

“They play and run around as though they hear you,” Brenna said. “Or they’ll stand in the cage looking at you. I think they maybe want to be free for a little bit. One time, they kissed. And everybody (pulled back) and was like, ‘Oh, gross!’ ”

The animals have a lifespan of two to three years. They are never let out as they could get lost.

Brooke, a first-grader, said the hamsters like to hit the spinner wheel when she reads to them.

“Maybe they think it’s a song,” she said.

She said she has a Basset Hound at home, Rigley, to whom she’s started reading.

“Sometimes when I read to him, he sits and listens but sometimes he just walks away, so then I read to my stuffed animals,” she confided.

So that everyone gets a chance with the animals, Delaney breaks classes up into small groups — one for the computer station, one for the Smart Board, one for the puzzle and coloring areas, one for the word work station and one for the hamsters. Every 10 minutes, Delaney rings a bell, signaling groups to rotate to the next station.

“Hocus pocus,” she said as she rang the bell.

“Everybody focus,” the children replied.

The children then shifted to their new station for their next activity.

When it was her turn to read to Abbey and Spectra, Felicia Amoia, 6, said she has a fish at home named Flower, but she doesn’t read to him. She said she likes reading to the two hamsters because “they’re fuzzy. I wish I could hold them.”

Delaney said the animals are very low maintenance and “they’re both girls, so you don’t have to worry about (procreation). They say when they’re siblings, they get along better.”

The rebate grant was for $75 with an accompanying grant for $50 to maintain the pets. The grant provided coupons as well for purchasing food and supplies.

For more information about Pets in the Classroom, visit petsintheclassroom.org.

Contact Summerlin Area View reporter Jan Hogan at jhogan@viewnews.com or 702-387-2949.