SquirrelGate 2016!!!

This incident actually took place last year but I was way too distraught to even consider writing about it.

        

Here is how this crazy story all began… At the beginning of last school year, my colleague and I crafted this beautiful paper tree as one of the focal points of my classroom décor. It took a little under four hours to complete and was relatively easy to construct.

The tree was made around an existing pipe in my classroom and used a number of recycled and low cost materials.

The completed tree was striking in person.

However, my beautiful tree’s life was cut way too short.

One day while teaching, my students and I heard a loud scream from the hallway. It was our PE teacher, who only seconds later came running into our classroom, he quickly motioned for us to all get out of the classroom.

What we did not realize was that a squirrel, yes you read that right; a squirrel had made its way into our school and somehow meandered his way to the second floor and into our classroom. A classroom with 30 squirming children and the same classroom with a beautiful paper tree placed conveniently in the corner.

I am pretty sure you can imagine what happened next, however in this case reality might in fact be stranger than fiction. The children and I were rushed out of the room, ushered into a ‘holding cell’, the police were called, and somehow the squirrel tried to climb the tree to avoid his arrest and sadly things went south.

The scene after I cleaned up the tree limbs.

The Aftermath

It was a really dramatic experience; the tree was destroyed, I cried like a baby (I am really not that sensitive.. I promise), and it took me MONTHS to even think about putting it back together.

And that is the story of SquirrelGate 2016.    :(