Project objective: to give children a sense of closure to the passing of a loved pet, and to start processing the abstract concept of death.
Skill development: asking and answering questions, reasoning, understanding the abstract concept of death and life cycles, understanding emotions associated with death, color identification, experimenting with mixing colors, new language.
Our school is located on a hobby farm, and with the joys of chicken snuggles and goat petting, there is also sadness when we lose a pet.
We celebrate the life of an animal that has died at school. The children get to see the animal that died, help bury it, share what they think happened, and paint a rock for the grave.
With rain and snow, the paint will eventually wash away. Using biodegradable, non-toxic paint ensures what is being washed into the ground belongs in the earth.
Recipe for homemade, zero waste paint:
- 1 1/2 cups flour (plus more as needed to thicken)
- 1 3/4 cup water
- 1-2 tablespoons of beet powder to make red (turmeric powder to make yellow, blue spirulina powder to make blue). Add more or less depending on shade preference.
- 1/2 cup salt
We used this recipe for painting rocks because the flour makes a more textured paint. You can use it on paper as well, or use just the beet and turmeric juice as water colors. To make the juice, boil beet peelings and turmeric in one cup of water each. Mix the two colors to create an orange-pink color.
Coarse salt was available for the children to add sparkle and additional texture to their rocks. We colored ours with beet juice to add a pinkish-red hue. (Use the turmeric juice to make yellow salt.)
The children were happy to place the rocks on the grave as a parting gift for our pet, and when they went down to the farm in the days that followed, they visited the grave again.
Here is a sample email I send to the children’s parents when an animal dies. I wrote this based off of one written by Elizabeth Criswell at the University of Minnesota. Click the link below to download and use as you’d like. The letter references an article that is also linked below.
Dear families,
Our classroom pet, <name of animal>, died this Saturday. <Explain in minimal detail what happened.> Big ideas, such as death, can often be confusing and abstract for children. For this reason, tomorrow the children will be able to look at her body, ask questions about what they see, offer ideas for what they think may have happened, and paint a special rock for her burial. We will bury her, and I will continue to answer the children’s questions in the upcoming days.
Many times adults view death from a very complex and mature lens and worry that preschoolers will be overly distressed or confused by such events. Often times, due to children’s developmental and cognitive abilities, they approach death in a manner quite different from what we might expect. Children can be curious about what death is, what it looks like, and how it happens.
If you have any questions about how to discuss this subject with your child, I have attached an article I have found helpful in the past. It is geared towards helping teachers, but explains how preschoolers often react to death. Overall, when “big issues” such as death come up, it is best to be honest with children while being mindful to provide simple, easy to understand explanations with limited details.
As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns you may have.
Sincerely,
<your name>