Class pet joins Halloween festivities in a big way

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

Editors' note: The teacher in this story coincidentally has the same name (with a different spelling) as the writer. They are not the same person.

SPANISH FORK — Have you ever wondered what a tortoise wants to be for Halloween? One Nebo School District elementary teacher has the answer: a dinosaur, of course.

Ariane Brown, a fifth-grade teacher at Spanish Oaks Elementary School in Spanish Fork, has a tortoise for a classroom pet, which her classes over the past four years have adored — even giving it a name that fits, well, like a shell.

"My class named her Shelly, of course," Brown said.

She got Shelly when students returned to school following pandemic school closures as a way to bring love and calm to the classroom.

"I love animals, and I think animals are great for kids," Brown said. "The kids love her in class. They each take a day to take care of her, feed her, clean out her cage, and make sure she always has clean water. They literally cannot wait for it to be their day. And with a lot of things being so stressful, I think animals are great to just calm kids down, and Shelly has done that several times on many occasions. When students are overly stressed, they can hold her, and it just gives them something else to do rather than focus on themselves."

As far as joining in with Halloween festivities, Brown said this isn't the first time Shelly has donned a costume.

A couple of years ago, she had a parent make a clown costume for the turtle but, as the years have gone on, Shelly has outgrown it. True to her educator's heart, when deciding what to dress her beloved tortoise as, she went looking for a costume that Shelly could grow into. Something to aspire to. Something big.

She took to her local Facebook community page in search of someone who would be able to turn Shelly into "Steggy." She found a local crochet artist named Tiffany Lambert, whose magical hands were able to make it happen.

Fitted with a row of colorful plates on her back, Shelly now gets to roam Brown's classroom in a big way ... one that will not go unnoticed.

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Arianne Brown

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Arianne Brown has been a contributing writer at KSL.com for many years with a focus of sharing heartwarming stories.