Nursery World - Positive Relationships: All in a day's work

Learning about death through the loss of a pet is a valuable lesson in childhood, say Nicola Bushell and Hayley Cannell from Oakey Dokeys Pre-School in Essex.

Ask the children in our setting what they like best about it and often the answer will be our guinea pigs. These two adorable, placid and very tolerant little chaps have been an important part of Oakey Dokeys since we first opened our doors. They perform an admirable job daily of settling nervous children or calming the overwrought, and many children see them as part of their routine, bringing food in from home which has to be duly fed to the guinea pigs before they settle down to other activities.

Oakey and Dokey, the guinea pigs, have become pets to those children who haven't any and taught many the responsibilities of caring for an animal. The downside, of course, is dealing with them when they are not so healthy and facing up to the fact that animals cannot last for ever. When the unthinkable did happen, and Dokey died one weekend, we felt the best course of action was to use it as a learning opportunity, a personal way of looking at knowledge and understanding of the world for the children and us.

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