Snow Week

As I believe everyone who reads this knows, we've been having some crazy weather down here in Salem this week.  It's been snowy and icy and just a big mess.  School ended up getting cancelled for the whole week, and now it is Christmas vacation.  School starts back up on January 5th, but I thought I'd just write a short entry about this week.

Sunday night it started snowing like mad.  We got about 3 inches before 8 o'clock, and Salem-Keizer cancelled school that evening.  The next day there was snow everywhere - including the roads.  I didn't do much.  Just stayed inside and tried to keep warm.  I watched the kids who live in the complex spend most of their day sledding down the driveway - which is a very nice angle for sledding and completly covered in snow.  There were not many cars coming and going either. They cancelled school for the next day that night at around 7.  Tuesday was pretty much the same.  We didn't get any new snow, but it was REALLY cold outside so nothing melted.  The cancelled school for Wednesday on Tuesday night at around 5:30.  Wednesday it started to warm up a little and the snow thinned out a bit.  There was no decision made Wednesday night, so I had to set my alarm Thursday morning to see what they were going to do.  I didn't sleep very well because I kept dreaming that I was watching the morning news and reading the crawl announcing school closures that goes across the bottom of the screen and ever time Salem-Keizer would go by, something would distract me and I'd miss what it said!  Then I'd change channels, and the same thing would happen!  I finally gave up at about 6 and turned on the tv to see that they had in fact cancelled school again.  Thursday was probably the warmest day.  The snow in our parking lot turned to slush and everything was just very mushy and wet.  The roads were clear.  But then it got cold again Thursday night and all of the slush froze into a lovely layer of ice.  So Friday morning I turned on the tv to see that school was cancelled yet again.  The kids of Salem-Keizer ended up getting a whole extra week off of school.  Today it's starting to melt again, and I can actually see the pavement through the snow in our driveway.  I'm getting really sick of it, since I've been stuck inside most of the week, lost a potential week's worth of pay, and now my plans for going home are a little up in the air.

But I guess this will be the last entry for 2008.  I hope to have lots more to write when school starts back up!  No more of this snow all week junk.  Merry Christmas everybody!

Warning: Long Post

So after my great excitement Thursday on the return of our internet, it died on me again that evening! I was trying to figure out why Bobbie couldn't log onto our wireless network, and then everything just went kaput. Thankfully, earlier on Thursday when the internet was working I had gotten a job for Friday on the sub site for a 4th grade class in south Salem. They were pretty funny kids, and a very small group to boot (only 20 enrolled, 19 present that day)! So I've got lots of stories to tell! I even wrote some notes last night so I would not forget all that I was going to write come Saturday. Here we go....

We started the day by doing a Second Steps (problem solving) activity that they had started the previous day. They were working with partners to act out an emotion for the class. Then they would present it and the class would try to guess what their emotion was. Some of the funnier ones included "Fury" (two boys pretend shoving each other across the room), and "fear" (two boy "zombies" chasing another around the room and then removing his shoes while a kid from another group turned the lights on and off rapidly). The zombie group was quite proud of themselves and just BEGGED me to let them do their skit one more time before PE. They mostly wanted to do this because another boy volunteered the use of his hoodie for one of the zombies. This particular hoodie had a bizarre pattern all over it, but it's most distinguishing characteristic was that it zipped all the way up - I mean ALL the way up - to the top of the hood. The hood then covering the face had 2 eyes and a giant grinning tooth-filled mouth design on it. Apparently the eyes were made of a see-through material so you could still see where you were going. Odd stuff. I've never seen anything like it. So I relented and let them do their zombie play once more.

After PE we returned to class to do the next activities - one of which required the use of the overhead. It was at this time that I discovered the bulb in the overhead was burned out! I ended up having to write out the material from the overhead onto the white board. However, I knew that all the activities for after lunch were going to require the overhead as well. So while the kids were working I was coming up with back-up plans. Plan A - Kid volunteers to go to the library to tell the librarian the bulb is burned out (she's the one who replaces them). He goes, but she's not there. He leaves a note, but I don't hear anything back for a while. Onto Plan B - borrow overhead from class next door. So I wait until the kids' recess time (my lunch) to go next door and ask if we can borrow the overhead. The teacher says yes, so I cart the thing over to my room and proceed to move the broken on and plug in the new one. I get it all ready to go, flip the switch and.....nothing happens! By this time I've pretty sure I have an overhead curse! I try everything to get it to work - plugging it into a different outlet, moving it to another cart, but nothing works! Moving now to Plan C - go to office and ask them to make copies of the overheads so I can just give the kids hard copies. I get there, tell them my problem, and they do me one better - they make Plan A work by finding the librarian for me, and covering her class so she can help me replace the bulb! After that's all done, I've missed pretty much all of my lunch, so I scarf down my sandwich and some crackers and chug my Pepsi in about 5 minutes. Ugh.

Later in the afternoon we had some extra time and I did a Christmas Mad Libs with the class. And it was pretty funny, so I'll just type it here for you to read!

The Twelve Days of Christmas (italicized words provided by students)
On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, an eagle in a peach tree. On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, two stinky doves and a glue stick in a pear tree. On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, three French lions, two turtle doves, and a name tag in a pear tree. On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, 800,000 weird papers, three French bugs and a cheese in a pear tree. On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, five golden heads, four calling birds, three Chinese hens, two turtle doves, and a toilet in a pear tree.

They really loved the toilet part, as I'm sure you can imagine. The golden heads got quite a few laughs too.

After this the 3rd and 4th grades had "Fun Friday" where they can choose a room to go to to do some kind of activity. One was capture the flag, one was coloring, on was a movie, my room was quiet ball. Two girls from my class stayed and a bunch of kids from other classes came in. They all pretty much policed themselves so I didn't have to anything. Although I did have to step in once to break up an argument over whether or not they could sit on the couch when they were out. When Fun Friday was over that was the end of the day. The kids came back to get their stuff, and I was glad because the ones who'd gone to play capture the flag came back completely soaked! They all looked liked they'd taken a shower with their clothes on. It made me cold just looking at them!

So Easy, I'm Bored

If you haven't read the entry before this - do it now! :) Because I've written 2 in one day now that my internet is working again! More info in previous entry.

Okay, this one is about Wednesday's sub job. I was quite angry Wednesday morning because I got a call at around 8:10 for a job that started at 8 that was at a school that was about a 20 minute drive away! I had to get dress in like 5 seconds, pack my lunch in 3 and run out the door! I was also not sure what I was walking into because it was a bilingual first grade. So I had no idea how their English skills would be, or what the plans would be like. (One time last year, I subbed for 2 days in a bilingual first grade where the teacher had left lesson plans IN SPANISH that had me teaching reading and science in Spanish. Needless to say, I didn't teach in Spanish.) Anyways.

I got there and met the IA, who was a young guy who, I kid you not, looked like a Hispanic version of David Archuleta. He had the same facial features, just had a darker complexion! It was funny because when I first say him I kept thinking, this guy looks familiar! Then I finally figured out why. :) So the literacy block for this class is a nearly two-hour time period, and it's supposed to be done in Spanish. But these people were smart, and they realized they probably wouldn't get a Spanish sub, so the IA was all ready to teach it. So basically the entire morning I did nothing. The IA taught all the stuff and then the kids went to recess with him and then he brought them back with their lunches! After lunch, I read a book to them and then had them color a gingerbread man coloring page before the health teacher came in to teach a health lesson. She was having them using the small white boards at their desks for part of the lesson. However, she couldn't find the dry-erase markers, and she had them using vis-a-vis markers instead (which are intended for the overhead and only erase if you whip the surface with a wet cloth). All the kids are trying to erase it with their kleenex and it's just smearing around so I see a bunch of them licking their fingers and rubbing that around to wipe it off. One boy licked the whole palm of his hand and then started smearing it around on his white board! It was disgusting!! After their lesson I took them to PE and then came back and helped the health teacher disinfect all of the white boards!

After PE I did a couple short math lessons with them and then let them do their math stations for the rest of the day. They were really sweet kids!

Blue Hands

As some of you know, I have been without internet service since Monday morning. I woke up and it wasn't working and after a few phone calls, and a couple trips to the Comcast office I managed to get someone here to work on it Tuesday night. Unfortunately, after the guy changed the modem, spliter, cord and got us hooked up again, he couldn't program the modem to our account because their servers had crashed. So I had to wait some more. Miracle of miracles though, it was working again this morning! (Much better than my original 8-10 appointment on Saturday morning).

So yes, I have been working this week, although not as much as I would like. My roommate has been easily getting twice as many calls as me, which has been really frustrating. I did not work Monday, but I did on Tuesday and Wednesday. No job today either. Thankfully, I did snag one for tomorrow! So this entry is going to be about Tuesday's job, and I'll write another for Wednesday after this.

Here we go!

On Tuesday I subbed in a first and second grade class - one I'd been to before, actually. This class. They were good again, and the day went by pretty smoothly. The literacy time was the hardest for me. They started by switching classrooms with the other first and second grades. Most of my kids left and I got a bunch of new ones. Then they did two 15 minute stations. Then they read to themselves for a bit I think. And then these 2 other teachers came in and we split the class into 3 groups and we each took one and did the lesson from the Reading Mastery program with them. That was kinda stressful, because I've only done RM a few times before, and I didn't have the book to look at in the morning when I arrived. The teachers that came in brought it with them. So I had no time to look at what I was teaching, I just had to totally wing it. It was okay though.

After that another class came in and we did writing all together. The writing assignment was for them to write something that they wished for someone else. Basically, they weren't supposed to wish for new toys and a Wii and all that stuff, but wish that their mom had a better job, or that their brother would get an A on his test, etc. The idea came from some book they'd read the previous day. It was kind of an abstract thing for this age of kids, but they did a pretty good job of it. The sweetest one was a little boy, who, all on his own, decided to write "I wish that everybody had shelter."

Oh, and in regards to the title "blue hands", another boy who was in my class only during the math time, colored the entire back of his hand blue with a markers. Isn't that charming? I didn't see him do it, I have no idea when he did it, but he did, and it was blue the rest of the day. The things a first grader will do!

Is this the same room?? Oh yes it is!

So I walked in the classroom this morning that I've been "affectionately" calling the "messy desk" class only to find that it was SPOTLESS! All the furniture had been re-arranged, the cubbies were tidy, the teacher's desk was cleared off, the closet was organized, the white board was cleaned, the floor had been swept, the carpet vacuumed, the shelves were neat - it was a COMPLETE opposite! I'm wondering...is this the same class?! Oh, yes, it is.

Actually, the day wasn't horrible. I've definitely had worse. But that's not to say that it was wonderful. There were about 5 boys who were all very energetic and always out of their seats, goofing off, or bugging each other. One was clearly the ring-leader. I learned later in the day that he is usually on medication, but he didn't take it today. Joy. He missed most of his recesses because I made him stay in with me. And at the end of the day the teacher came into the room (thankfully, it was at a moment where they were mostly under control) and he took him out in the hallway and talked to him, and then kept him and 2 other boys in the room when I took the class out to their final recess.

There were a lot of good kiddos though, and I tried to avoid punishing them along with their classmates. At first I wasn't going to take them out to recess because of the naughty ones, but then I changed my mind and made the naughty ones sit out and watch while the others played. It worked much better. And at the end of the day I cut up some sheets of smiley-face stickers and gave a couple to all of the kids who had made it onto my "on-task" list. They seemed really pleased with that, so if I ever end up going there again, hopefully they'll remember that I'm not a total meanie. Last time they seemed to find me a bit annoying, but at the end of the day today some of them (the nice ones) told me that I was the best substitute because I was nice to them. So it wasn't all horrible this time. I'm not jumping at the chance to go back, but I think I could survive.

Oh Bother...

Well, today was interesting. I traveled up north to sub in a 4th grade class. It was only a morning job - I took it online last night. I was hesitant, but I figured a half-day was better than no day. I wasn't sure about the school either - I've only been here once before, last year, and I couldn't really remember my impression of the school. But I figured they'd have PE or Music or some pull-out in the morning (the intermediate grade always have these in the morning), so it couldn't be that bad even if they were difficult.

The teacher I was subbing for only taught this class in the morning anyway, and another teacher taught the afternoon. The afternoon teacher was there when I arrived and she showed me a couple things before she left. She also told me that they were a "good class" but that they are often "bratty for subs". Now this statement just puzzles me. Now, I don't want to judge the teachers, because I don't know what they have or haven't tried, but I would not be okay if I knew my students were brats to subs. If it was my class, and I'd heard that they were obnoxious to subs I'd keep them in from recess, take away their free time, make them write letters to me explaining how they should have acted, and then, I tell them that if it ever happened again we'd be doing the same thing all over again. Yes, I expect that kids are going to push their limits a little with a sub. I expect that. But when kids are just blatantly disrespectful - that's not okay. And there's only so much I can do in one day to combat this.

Lots of the kids in the class were nice kids. A few seemed kinda hyper, or easily distracted. About 3 or 4 boys were pretty rude. I was glad to be done with them.

Tomorrow I'm returning to this class. Not super excited about it, but I took the day before I'd been to the class the first time, and I can't cancel it and get something else. If I cancel, I don't work. And I really want the money. I'm going to try to have a positive attitude. I'm going to have high expectations despite what I know of this group. I'm going to bring books, and prizes and games. I'm going to bribe them! haha That sounds bad, but I am going to reward them for good behavior. I hope I'm running low on prizes tomorrow evening!

December Already!

I not really in the blogging mood at the moment, so this may end up being kinda sort.

Subbed in a bilingual first grade class today. I know the teacher, who requested me. We look a lot alike, and I was mistaken for her 3 times in the morning by staff, and one kid asked me if I was her sister!

The day seemed oddly long - I think because in first grade you have to do so MANY different things all for really small time periods because they have short attention spans. You'd think that'd make the day go faster, but really the opposite is true.

Most kids did pretty good speaking English for the day (usually, they do most everything in Spanish). There were a few kids that weren't comfortable with their English - sometimes I could understand what they were asking/telling me, and when I couldn't, I just had one of the better English speakers translate for me. They were all really eager to be my "Spanish helper" so that was good.

I honestly cannot think of anything else to tell about the day. Can't even remember all of what we did! Oh well, better luck next time. Happy December all!

Easiest Day!

I've almost forgotten my blog for Friday! It was one of the simpler days of my subbing experience. I was teaching fifth grade for the afternoon. When I arrived the kids were in music, and after that went directly to PE. They then came back to class themselves after PE with their lunches. They ate lunch in the classroom and then went out to recess. When they came back in from recess their teacher had left a test for them to take. It was a 25 question multiple choice test based on the material from their "We the People" textbook - which about the American government. They had an hour to complete their tests and then we had a Harvest Party! A couple parents came to help and they, the kids and I served up some pumpkin pie, jerky, nuts, popcorn and cranberry juice. It was an odd assortment, but the kids were enjoying themselves.

One girl in the class was quite the talented writer. She showed me the beginning to a story she'd written and it was pretty impressive for such a young kid. I wish I'd written down her name so I could keep my eyes peeled for her in the book store in 10 or 15 years! :)

There was other girl who came up to me during the party and asked, "Have you read that book called Twilight?" I answered that yes, I had. And then she just said, "oh" and turned around and left! I was thinking, "Hey! Come back here! We aren't done with this conversation!" But then I remembered that I was supposed to be the adult, so I just had to bite my tongue.

Now, I will not be writing another blog for a least a week. Salem-Keizer returns to school on December 1 - and then we'll see from there!

Indians and Turkeys

Today was the day before the last day before Thanksgiving break in the Salem-Keizer school district. And yes, I realize that is a confusing sentence, but I like it. It's funny.

So yes, I have no entries for the last 5 days. That's because there's no school on Saturday and Sunday, so no subbing to write about, and the first three days of this week I went jobless. But today I had a job at one of the nicer schools in the district, with another first grade class.

The kids were good, typical first-graders. Meaning that if they had some random thought cross their brain at any point in the day they had an incredibly difficult time fighting the primal urge to BLURT it out right then and there! It can be frustrating, but it's also so hilarious sometimes I have a hard time not laughing. There was one instance where I was reading a Thanksgiving poem that said something in it about going to Grandma's house. I raised my hand in the air and asked the kids if any of them were going to their Grandma's house for Thanksgiving. Instead of those who were going to a Grandma's house raise their hands in imitation of what I was doing, they all - ALL - started yelling out simultaneously just exactly where they WERE going. And yes, they really were yelling, because otherwise how would I hear them over all the other kids?! haha So it took me a couple minutes to calm them all down. I made some lame statement like, "Now, did I say, 'everybody yell out to me where you're going for Thanksgiving'?" To which they replied emphatically, "Noooooooo!" Then we moved on for fear they would all think of something new to tell me.

Other than that it was uneventful. Oh, and we read stories about Indians and made paper turkeys and tissue paper turkeys - which has inspired this blog's title.

I'm subbing tomorrow afternoon, but might not blog about it until Sunday because I'm going to Vancouver for the weekend. And then that will be all for the blogs for a week due to Thanksgiving break!

Cut and Paste

It is so nice to know the night before where you'll be going the next morning. I'd had my job for today for a few days, which is even nicer. It was for a 1/2 blend in south Salem. I'd been requested to sub by the teacher, who I know.

The kids were pretty good, although they ability group all of the first and second grades for reading, and the teacher I was subbing for and the teacher next door switched classes for math (well, the 2nd graders went next door and all the first graders came to me) so that made it a little more difficult to remember which kids were mine and which I had just seen at some point in the day.

We did a lot of cutting and pasting today. For reading, my reading class and the reading class next door got together and made paper scarecrows, which involved cutting out pants, a shirt, 2 boots, 2 gloves, a head, hat, and scarf. Which is a lot of cutting for little guys. So it took a good hour to do this. We had 4 adults in the room helping, which was good. We when around picking up scraps of paper and taking them to the recycling, finding the specific tracer that a kid needed, counting all their pieces to make sure they had everything, etc. It was very busy, but they did a good job.

Later in the day with my math group we made paper crabs. They are leaning to count by tens and do math in groups of ten, and since crabs have 10 legs they are used a lot of visuals in the Bridges program. The kids made the crabs today and later they will arrange them into a chart. So again I was dealing with kids trying to cut out a bunch of little legs and bodies and get them glued together correctly. After this I was very glad to be done with cutting!

At the end of the day I had my class back and they were writing stories about bats and drawing pictures for their stories. I put in a CD of Disney music to play while they worked. They REALLY liked that. The only problem was that they wanted to get up and dance for every song! But I just told them that if the music was too distracting that they couldn't get their work done I'd turn it off. So they got back to work and enjoyed trying to be the first to figure out what song was playing and what movie it was from. They knew all of them even though some were from older movies like Mary Poppins and Aladdin.

By the end of the day I had a headache and I'm not sure why. They weren't that loud, and I didn't feel like I had to raise my voice that much. Tis a puzzle. Perhaps I did not have enough caffeine. I came home, took some Excedrin (caffeine) and had a Pepsi (caffeine) and I'm feeling much better! :) Now I'm heading off to Corban to see their play: Twelfth Night. Should be fun. I love Shakespeare and this is one of my favorites!

30th Post!

Let me just take a moment to congratulate myself on actually keeping up with this blog thing! I must admit, when I started it I wasn't sure how long it would last. I had the best intentions, but sometimes I run out of time for things like this what with all my other projects. (Such as the second Kailey book - which is now DONE!) And I also must thank my loyal readers who keep reading no matter how boring or trivial my posts get, and for always commenting! I love reading the comments and it's nice to see who's actually reading this thing!

Anyways, on to today. I turned down a job this morning for a first grade bilingual class. I subbed in this teacher's class last year and I remembered how some of his plans were in Spanish, and that I was expected to teach reading and science in Spanish. I muddled through solely because I do know some Spanish, but I just did not want to deal with that stress/annoyance today. So I turned it down, and for a while I was thinking I might end up with no job, but then I got a call for an afternoon in a third grade in Keizer (all in English as well!)

It was a fairly easy day. I taught a reading group of 10 students (all the third grade ability grouped so lots of my class left and a few additional ones came in), then supervised a science activity with the original class and then they went home. There was this one kid in the reading group that was exhasting! He was a good kid, he always followed directions and he did his work but he could just NOT sit still!! I was constantly telling him to sit down, put the toy away, follow along, etc. He always did it, but just lost his focus about 1 minute later. So I couldn't really be mad at him - he was trying - it was just tiring. It's what I imagine my friend Donna would have been like as a child.

For the science project, the kids had to pick an item in the room and describe it (color, smell, weight, size, shape, etc.) and then write a riddle so others could try to figure out what item they chose. They all got pretty into it, and lots of them shared their riddles - and I couldn't figure out any of them! One in particular was interesting - I don't believe he completely listened to the instructions. His riddle went something like this: "It's kinda smelly, it's green, and it's all over the room." Figured out your answer yet? A fart. Yeah. Third grade people. That's what goes through their heads. I said, "It's green?!". He laughed and said yes. Then I made some lame statement about how they were supposed to choose an object in the room not a bodily function and moved on really quickly. Still shaking my head over that one.

Speedy Pizza

Short but interesting day today. Lots of stories to tell. I will have to work hard to keep this coherent and to keep my stories from intruding upon one another. Wish me luck, readers!

First, a little background information: beloved south Salem school, afternoon only, 4th/5th grade. Okay, now we are good to go!

I arrived at 11:30 and the teacher showed me all the stuff we were gonna do. Which was nice, but sort of unnecessary. I'd read through the plans in the 3 minutes she was out of the room and felt I had a handle on them. But I couldn't just blow her off, so I listened while she explained it again, which resulted in me having a 10 minutes lunch. Yes, I can eat in 10 minutes, but this lunch time is the one with lots of staff in the lunch room, and I know bunches of them and like to visit with them, so I could barely scarf down my pepperoni hot pocket in that amount of time! The rest of the time I was distracted talking about the messy desk from last week, and my time with the kindergarteners last week, and my love of Pushing Daisies and the disappointment that it's being preempted AGAIN this week! (I found a kindred spirit sitting right next to me who also said it was her favorite show.) But I digress.

After inhaling lunch and trying to carry my Pepsi inconspicuously down the hall, I went to pick up my class from recess. Upon seeing me a bunch of the kids at the front of the line exclaimed, "Miss Barnes!" and "She's the best substitute ever!" (That's right, and don't you forget it!) If only I could get these kids to write me letters telling how awesome I am and then I could submit a giant packet to all interviewers and maybe somebody would hire me!

Later in the day I was talking with a boy from the class and he expressed his disbelief that I did not remember his name! After all, I had been in his classroom "like a ton of times!" last year. So then I said, "Ok, let me explain this. Let's say I go to 5 different schools in week, 5 different classrooms, and let's say each class had 20 kids in it (even though they always have more), that makes 20, 40, 60, 80, 100 kids a week! And then lets say I sub every day for a month. That's about 4 weeks, so thats 100, 200, 300, 400 kids in one month! 400 names!! So how can you expect me to remember them all?!" I laughed. He smiled, but then said, "Yeah, but you came to my class a WHOLE BUNCH!!" Sigh. You cannot win. So I said I was sorry I couldn't remember his name and that was the end of that.

After the kids went home I returned to the room and wrote my note to the teacher and cleaned up a little. Then I spent a little time writing in my sub journal which I'm still keeping this year. This blog is the place for my humorous, or interesting, or painful stories of the day. In the journal I write about specific management styles, classroom set-up, rewards, schedules, etc. that I either love or hate from the day. I kept one last year, and it's really nice to be able to look back and remember some of the things I learned. While I was doing this, another substitute came into the room. She had been a regular classroom teacher last year but had decided to quit and substitute this year. She wanted to ask me about how I dealt with difficult (or loud) classes, ornery students and the like while substituting. I tried to answer her as honestly as possible even when some of my answers included "I ignore it". Because honestly, some things you just have to let go when you're only with the kids for one day. It was interesting that she sought me out to ask me these things when she's had her own class before. It just goes to show that subbing IS different from having your own class in that it's often HARDER! Yes, we don't have to deal with the meetings and conferences and lesson planning. But we do have to be ready to jump up and change course at the drop of a hat, to take charge of a new group of kids, and to work with countless more assistants and teachers and staff everyday. I feel like a lot of times even people who work in the schools don't REALLY understand how demanding my job is, so it's nice when you see that others understand. And also nice to be seen as someone to ask advice from!

A Nice Calm End to the Week

Only November and I've already made a repeat visit to one of the classes I went to earlier in the year! The one from this blog.

The day went smoothly, and the kids were cute. A few of them even remembered my name! There was really nothing that out of the ordinary to write about. Ummm... there was a new student today. The office told her family that there would be a substitute today, but apparently they didn't care and the girl really wanted to come today. She seemed totally comfortable and chatty and just jumped right in a played with everybody. So that was good.

I really can't think of anything else to say about my day! So sorry to my loyal readers: this one's just boring!

Hurricane Second Grade

Whew! I am very glad to be home this evening. I subbed today in a school I had not been to before, in a second grade class.

First thing I saw upon entering the room was that it was a bit of a mess. Well....mess is an understatement. There were great piles of teacher edition textbooks, papers, notes, books, etc. on the teacher's desk, one of which was topped by a giant box filled with yet more books. I happened to brush against it once and sent the whole thing tumbling down! There were also papers littered all over the floor in the teacher's corner. Just a carpet of papers. Not kidding. Also, there was a nice closet over in this area that had a bunch of shelves in it, but none of the shelves had anything on them. All the stuff was on the floor, and a big file cabinet was smack dab in the middle of the doorway with yet more boxes and papers piled on it. Now, I'm not a complete neat-freak, but I do have lots of obsessive-compulsive tendencies and I'm usually organized with most things - and when I am organized I'm pretty picky about it. So this just about sent my brain into orbit so early in the morning! I had to fight all my instincts to clean up and straighten and organize the room just so I could read the lesson plans! Ah!! It still send shivers down my spine! Must! Clean! Mess! haha

Well then the kids got there and they weren't too happy to see me. Apparently they've had a lot of substitutes lately, and they were pretty weary of it. The did a pretty good job in the morning. There was an assitant who came and took about 2/5ths of the class for reading which was nice. They also had recess and then a Spanish lesson which was taught by another teacher - I just had to come and watch. However, after lunch things went downhill. (I blame it on the cupcakes one of the girls brought for her birthday!) There were about 5 boys who just could NOT sit still! They were out of their seats getting pencils, going to the bathroom, getting drinks, or just plan goofing around. The teacher lets the students take the bathroom or drink pass and go without asking as long as it's not during instruction time. I've been to a few classes like this, and sometimes it's just fine, but today it really annoyed me. The kids were abusing the privilege and it was just a CONSTANT stream of them coming and going. I eventually took away the drink pass and told them no more drinks. But back to my little challenging boys. Whenever I tried to have the class sit at the carpet for more than 5 minutes to give instructions, these boys were lying down, rolling around, sitting under tables, playing with stuff on the shelves, talking, bugging other kids, picking at each other, etc. It was driving me CRAZY! I had to stop so many times to tell them to sit up, stop talking and pay attention I felt like a broken record. Needless to say I was very tired by the end of the day. And I vowed to myself never to let my future students dismiss themselves to go to the bathroom - if only to save a substitute some grief.

The Metaphorical Red Carpet

Today I returned to my favorite school to sub in a kindergarten class. I'd subbed in this teacher's room last year, so I was familiar with the routine as well as the assistant (who is one of the best assistants out there - she just has the sense to know when to jump in and when to just let me deal with things. She's super helpful, and easy to talk to, and really good with the kids. So it's nice to sub when you know you'll have good help.) Anyways, the day was pretty easy: song, calendar, story, "jobs" or "groups" as I called them in error, recess, movie and snack and then home! Then: repeat! We watched a movie today because it was the kids' last day in that classroom. Their regular classroom had a leaky pipe which caused a whole bunch of mold, and they had to move out for a couple weeks while the problem was fixed. Today they finished the repairs so they can return to their regular classroom tomorrow. The movie was a sort of celebration (plus movies are easy for subs to manage which I'm sure influenced the teacher's decision to plan one!)

Once again I felt like a celebrity at this school. EVERY time I went outside or walked down the hall and passed other classes, I saw little faces light up with recognition and start waving frantically or yelling out my name! Once, as I was coming back inside with my class, I passed a class going out to recess. LOTS of the kids were waving at me as we passed each other. Then, the little boy at the end of this line saw me and started yelling "Hi! Hi!" out to me. A few moments later he remembered my name and started yelling that behind me and waving. I waved back. Then, as I'm turning the corner I hear him out on the playground yelling, "HEY!! Hey you guys!! I found Miss Barnes!! I found Miss Barnes!!!" It was all I could do to keep from cracking up. Kids are so funny. Kinda cool to still be remembered after the long summer!

Oh, and this message is to Jan: I hear you are lurking! I'm glad you're reading - you should comment sometime! (You don't even have to sign up to do it!) :)

Election Lessons and Wet Rears

Today I subbed in a new school (for me) in south Salem (the last school in south Salem that I haven't been to yet!) I was in a 2nd grade class in the morning and a 5th grade class in the afternoon while the teachers were going to meetings. There were 5 other subs in the building that were doing similar schedules. I met both teachers I was covering for in the morning. The first showed me her plans, the second told me where I would find hers when I came over - she also told me she had a rowdy bunch. Funny- I year or so ago this knowledge would have filled me with dread for the afternoon. Now, I don't really react to it at all! I have been to *heck* and back while substituting! No rowdy class can defeat me now!! ha HA!

Anyways, the 2nd grade class had a student teacher, so I didn't have to do much. I cut some paper rectangles for the teacher and I read with a group of students. Other than that I just kinda buzzed around and helped when I could. The kids had a chance in the morning to share about what they did for Halloween. One kid told me at least 3 times that he went to the haunted house at the "death school" (he meant deaf school) and apparently, people chased you around with "real chainsaws" and the "only way to get them to stop was to wave at them or high-five them." Sounds creepy to me, but whatever. Another boy got up and told the class with big arm motions that he went trick-or-treating and got "TONS OF LOOT!" The rest told me how they got 3, 7, 15, 24, etc. bags of candy. I find this hard to believe.

The 5th graders were a little more work for me. There were 26 of them, and they were a loud group. We also had a couple of very active projects for them to do later in the afternoon, so this only added to the noise level. But I managed (somehow - I'm starting to get good at it I think), to make them realize that I'm in charge, but also, cool enough so that they don't mind that I'm in charge. If that makes sense. So after I'd been with them about 15 minutes they were working and not giving me attitude anymore. The rest of the day was loud because of group projects they were working on...but we managed to keep it just under the "chaos level." haha The kids were pretty funny too. Right off the bat they wanted to know who I was voting for (election day was one of the topics of the day, as you can imagine). I told them that I wasn't going to tell them then because they were supposed to be working, but I might tell them at the end of the day. They were of varied opinions in the class. One girl was talking about how McCain was awesome, and that her mom and dad and grandma, etc, etc. had voted for him. Another boy walked about the room chanting "O-bama! O-bama!" The end of the day comes and they all leave. I've forgotten. They've forgotten. But about 30 seconds after they leave, 2 girls come tearing back into the room and are just frantic that I didn't tell them who I'd voted for. So I told them. :) One was pleased, one was not. Oh, I must mention why I've titled this blog "wet rears" in part - we went out for a short recess near the end of the day and everything was wet, but a few students chose to go down the slide anyway...so they got very "wet rears". I started to say something about their "wet rears" and found it is a difficult phrase to say! Seriously, try it. So my voice is a little sore tonight, but even so it was an enjoyable day!

Well That Was Easy!

So this is gonna be really short, because I've been up late the last 3 nights in a row and I'm pooped! I was going to write this tomorrow, but I was afraid I'd forget, so I'm writing it tonight.

Today I subbed up in north Salem in a 5th grade. It was just a morning assignment. The kids arrived at 9, and did their independent, everyday morning-work for a half hour. Then they had music, followed by PE so I didn't see them for an hour. I picked them up from PE, then we went back to the room, got supplies ready and went to the computer lab. The assistant and I helped the kids with some project they were working on that had to do with explorers. After an hour in the lab, we went back to the class where I was supposed to lead some math activities. But we arrived, and their teacher had returned, so she took over. I took some cardboard out to the recycling for her, then help a few kids with their work before I left. Pretty uneventful, but great to get paid for it!

There was one funny moment: when the kids were arriving a boy came in the door and I could tell by the way he acted that he was trying pretty hard to be "cool". I said "Good Morning", and he looked at me and asked, "Are you a substitute?" in a sort of mildly smarty-alecy way. To which I replied, "Yes, I am. Are you a student?". At this he lost control of his cool exterior for a moment and a chuckle escaped him. He recovered quickly though. Can't let the other kids see the you think an adult is funny ya know? :) Even so, they were nice kids!

Sub Fairy

Today I had a very interesting day subbing! I dubbed myself the "sub fairy". Reasons forthcoming... I was at a school in southeast Salem serving as a "roving sub". They were having grade level team meetings (or something like that) throughout the day, so there were 4 subs (including me) assigned to rove about the school going to 5 different classrooms for an hour each. I've done days like this before and they're kinda fun because you get to see lots of different rooms, and if a class annoys you, you don't have to be with them for that long! Well, it ended up that a lot of the time I wasn't actually needed in the room I was assigned to, so I spent most of my day flitting about doing random deeds for people around the school that needed assistance! I just popped in, did a bunch of work, and then flew away again! Hence "sub fairy". Lame, but I needed a title. haha

My first hour doesn't start til 9:15 and it's 8:15 when I arrive, so the office manager (who had the same last name as me, by the way) told me I could just go to my first room early. This was a fifth grade classroom and the teacher had me work on a project for her for the morning. I went through her book library, looked up each book on the Scholastic website, and wrote down the reading levels in the back of the book. When the students arrived she described the math assessment they were going to work on while I was there. She left, and the kids did the assessment for the whole hour while I continued to catalog books. It was quite easy.

For the second hour I went to the next class only to discover their was a sub in that class already for the whole day. Since the sub wasn't going to the meeting, I wasn't needed there. So I went back to the office and the office manager took me to the library to help them in their. The Librarian had me re-shelf books and then "read the shelves" which basically means I started at A in the fiction section and went down the rows pulling the books to the front and making sure their were in correct alphabetical order.

After that I had a lunch break and then went to my third classroom. But, surprise! This class had a sub already too! So I returned to the library and started reading the shelves again where I left off. I got through the "L"s before I had to leave for my forth class. This class did actually need me. I worked with a group of 6 kids doing a reading lesson. Tough stuff. :)

This class did frustrate me in a way though - not that they were naughty or anything, but while they were working on a project we were visiting and somehow the topic of discussion turned to movies and all of the kids were saying how they wanted to see Saw V(5) in the theater! I told them that they were too young to watch that kind of movie, that it was rated R and they shouldn't be allowed to see it. One boy said he could sneak in. Another said his mom would take him. So then I said that his mom shouldn't be taking him to movies like this. (Not something I would say probably if I was the actual teacher, but as the 1-hour sub I felt a little freer to say what I thought to him.) But honestly, what kind of sick people would take their 4th grade child to see a movie that's about people being tortured to death?! Who in their right mind thinks that this is appropriate for someone of this age? Personally, I don't think it's appropriate for anyone. Why do people like to watch other people murdered, tortured, terrorized? Why is this considered entertainment? Why can the movie industry produce one slasher/horror flick after another after another and people will still flock to see them? What does is say about our society that torture is something to watch? That it is something to let our children watch? Yes, it's not real, but it looks real and it only serves to steadily desensitize the youth of America until nothing seems "off-limits" anymore. How much more difficult will it then be to draw the line between fantasy and reality? It's a disturbing tread in adults, but even more so when I see how prevalent their popularity is among young kids! Sad sad sad. Parents should use better judgment.

Moving on though...next up was my last class...and guess what? I went to the room and there was a sub in there already! So I went back to the office for a third time and once again ended up in the library, re-shelving books. The office manager did find me another task to do this time around though - he found a teacher who could use a little extra help in his room. So after I put the books back on the shelves I went to another room and did a bunch of filing. It reminded me of my days in 8th grade, working as a teacher's assistant in my dad's classroom, filing papers all day! The teacher in this room even reminded me of dad - he had a lot of the same mannerisms and way of saying things. And that was the end of the day! It was oddly disjointed, but went by pretty quickly. I did a lot of tedious tasks, but everyone I helped was REALLY grateful and kept thanking me repetitively. I didn't mind doing any of the jobs really - they sorta fit in well with my OCD personality! Plus I was getting paid really well to alphabetize books!

The rest of my day as been really busy as well. I went to the Dollar Tree, Walmart, and Fred Meyer looking for bunches of stuff that I NEEDED. Then this evening I was surprised by Erin calling me! Hence why this post is so late! And now I need to go to bed or I will regret it tomorrow.

Gotta love Hannah Montana!

Let's see....what to blog about today? Well, I subbed at a school way up north in Salem this afternoon in a 3rd grade class. The kids were a little rowdy when they first got there and the assistant in the room jumped in a said something about respect to them which kinda threw me off because I hadn't even said anything to them myself yet. But oh well, moving on...

So I started reading to the kids from this book the teacher left and they were talking a lot so I had to stop and lecture them on being polite and how I was their teacher for the afternoon and they needed to be good listeners, blahdy-blah, etc. After that they were a lot better. We did some other reading and writing activities and everything was going just peachy. Then at the end of the day they kids were finishing up their work and a bunch of them were talking, but I was just ignoring them and trying to figure out what to do for the last 10 minutes of the day. Well, at this point the assistant jumps in again and makes all the kids put their heads down and apologize to me. That was kinda awkward because I didn't really feel like they owed me an apology, but I also didn't want to say that because it'd make the assistant look bad. So I just pretty much just stood there. She meant well, and I appreciated that she wanted to help, but it just made me look ineffective.

But we moved on, and I passed out folders before the kids went home. Some of the girls' folders had Hannah Montana stickers on them, so I sang a few bars of some Hannah Montana songs while they were coming to get their folders. This had all of them quite amused (and I think impressed with my great knowledge!) Nothing like a little Hannah Montana to entertain the youngsters!

Ever been to Hucky-Tucky?

Oh the things kindergarteners say! Today I subbed in an afternoon kinder class at a south Salem school. While working with a group of about 5 or 6 kiddos, we were talking about brothers and sisters. One boy told me he had brothers and sisters in India and that he went there last summer. Most of the rest of their stories were fairly typical. I told them my brother lived in California. This sparked many stories about California and how it's a "long way away" and how they slept in the car on the way there. Then, another girl told me that she had a sister in Hucky-Tucky (or was it Yucky-Tucky? can't remember) and that she used to live there too. I said, "Hucky-Tucky? Where's that?" She didn't know really. "Is it far away?" I asked. She said yes. So I asked, "Do you mean Kentucky?" "Oh yeah! Kentucky. Yeah, that's what I mean." she replied.

Just too cute! :)

Oh! And I just remembered another story from the day. One boy showed up in the morning with his mother, who informed us that he'd decided to spray himself with a little perfume on his way out the door. Well, after she left and the boy took his coat off her just REEKED of perfume! The assistant ended up taking him to the office to get a new shirt to wear!

Feeling Discouraged

The new sub system is convenient I guess, but it kind of a pain. You have to be REALLY quick with the clicker or somebody beats you to it. It's frustrating! I'm hoping it will turn out to be a nice change, but right now I'm not loving it so much. It makes me feel like I'm just a number.

Anyways, I feel like blogging, but it looks like there will be no new story for today. So here's another short old one from last year:

I was subbing in a Head Start preschool and I had brought my book (the one my aunt wrote and I illustrated - from here on known as "the Kailey book"). I read the book to the class and they really liked it and were very impressed with my drawing - I've been told I'm a "good draw-er". Anyways, the class and I went out for recess and one of the little girls ran up to me and told me that when she "growed up" she was going to be a teacher too and she was going to write a book and read it to her class too! It was cute.

Hey! Here's a little plus - I do have a job for tomorrow now! I've conquered the clicker!

Teacher on the Phone

Today I got my very first sub job via the online sub assignment system. I logged on in the morning when I got up at 6:30 and didn't see anything listed I wanted to take (something bilingual and the other was a library job). But I checked back a couple minutes later and a job was listed for a grade 4/5 at my favorite school! Unfortuantely, it was listed as being "in callout" so I couldn't accept it. But I waited and refreshed the page a bunch of times, but eventually the "in callout" display went away and the site let me accept it!

I got there a couple hours later and was pleased that lots of teacher, the office staff, and the principal all recognized me and seemed pleased to see me. The secretary said she didn't know I was subbing still and that she would put me on their preferred list (which means I'll get to see the jobs available at that school before people who aren't on that list get to see them.)

Anyways, they were having the jog-a-thon today and the kids were pretty wound up, but we didn't really have any problems.

The only weird thing was that at the end of the lunch the teacher called the room and wanted to talk to a couple different students. They were on the phone for a while writing down things and reading things back to her. By this time I was supposed to be starting the next activity, but I wasn't sure if I should wait or not, but after a few minutes it didn't seem that they were about to get off, so we just started anyways. It worked out.

Anyways, it was nice to be back and have everybody remember me. I saw lots of kids too both in my class and in the hall that recognized me and waved or said hi. I always feel a little like a celebrity when I go there. :)

Paleontology

"A science dealing with the life of past geological periods as known from fossil remains."

Today my little second grade charges were studying fossils and dinosaurs. Which posed some interesting moments as the book kept talking about the fossils that were millions of years old and the earth being billions of years old and then some little boy piped up to say that he didn't really think the earth was that old. So then I'm trying to acknowledge him, because I sorta agree with him (although I do think the earth really could be that old, just hasn't been around that long - I mean Adam wasn't created as an infant so the earth probably wasn't either - but I digress.) And then I'm also trying to explain why the book says what it does - basically that most scientists believe what the books says but that some people disagree. And then somehow this becomes a discussion on whether people come from apes - so I'm diving into the theory, not fact discussion again. And then some girl asks where trees came from - but bless her, another girl piped up with "God made them" and that satisfied the questioner and she didn't care anymore what I had to say. :)

We also had to go get their pictures taken today. It's always an adventure when you have to pass out multiple pieces of paper to kids when you don't know any of their names! But it went well.

I also read Piggie Pie to the class today, which they enjoyed - kids always enjoy that book. :)

And that was my day pretty much in reverse order! haha don't know why I did it that way.

Little Penguins

Today I was subbing in the afternoon at a Head Start at a school really close to my apartment. I've done quite a few Head Start classrooms last year, but not this particular one. I get there, meet the assistant and help get ready for lunch.

The kids arrive at 12:30. There are 20 of them - 6 girls and 14 boys! Just get that imagine in your head - 20 little 3-foot-high four-year olds all trying to get into a straight line to walk from bus to classroom.... which was a pretty long distance!

I do not have any entertaining stories for the blog today except to say that I am VERY tired! Even just 3 hours with these little guys and they had me wiped! Ever been to the zoo and watched the penguin habitat? You know how they kinda run around in circles and jump in the water and jump back up and run into each other always in constant movement? Yeah, that gives you a pretty good picture of what my day was like.

Now here's a interesting piece of news! Salem-Keizer has officially joined the 21st century! The electronic calling system is finally online! I got my first call from the machine just about 15 minutes ago. So I've got a job for the afternoon tomorrow over in west Salem in a 2nd grade. So stay tuned for that episode tomorrow!

4th Grade Drama

My blog has been silent for the last week because I did not get one sub job all last week! I got up, got dressed and ready and then sat around waiting for a couple hours for a call that never came. It was frustrating.

However, my long-suffering (haha) was rewarded today with job call at 7am! It was nice to not have to sit around waiting and wondering again this morning.

So this job is at a school in east Salem, in an ESL 4th grade. This isn't my favorite school of the lot, but you take what you can get you know? The day went pretty well for the most part. The teacher had left detailed plans (except she forgot to mention that I was supposed to go out with the class during their recess and I didn't. There were other teachers out there, so it wasn't the end of the world - just made me look a little bad), and the kids were mostly good. A couple boys had a bit of an attitude near the end of the day, consisting of things such as being a smart-alec, not doing what they were supposed to and instead doing things they weren't supposed to, and scoffing at me occasionally. Charmingly typical forth-grade behavior. Especially in ones who mistakenly think they are cooler than the whole earth. Once I just landed on the kid and told him he was being rude and that he'd better knock it off or I'd be leaving detailed notes on his behavior for his teacher. The other time (with a different kid) the instructional assistant in the room decided it was her job to take care if it. It was kinda nice of her, but also kinda frustrating because it just makes me look like a wimp who can't handle the kids. This happens to me from time to time and I think it's because I'm young and look young and most of the time the assistants are older than me, and often have been working in the school for many years, so they feel like I surely won't know enough to handle the situation so they better just do it for me. This assistant wasn't really that bad, there were just a few times she jumped in...but on other occasions I've had an IA butt in in the middle of me giving directions to lecture the students on how rude they were. That was really annoying. But back to today...

Another odd part of the day was related to a wardrobe issue. You see, a few hours into the morning one girl in the class noticed that she had a hole in the armpit of her t-shirt. She came up to me and wanted to go to the office to call her mom to have her bring a new shirt to school. I just said that no one was going to notice, but she was resolute that they would and that she just could not go on without a new shirt. I then suggested that she put her sweatshirt back on (she was wearing it earlier) but she refused that suggestion by telling me the tale of how her grandmother was sick with hives and that she caught them, (can you catch hives?) and if she got too hot then that made her hives itch and if she wore her sweatshirt it would be too hot so she couldn't do that! I eventually gave in and sent her to the office to have them figure it out. She comes back later and says nothing so I just don't think about it. Then, before recess she is coming up to me again saying that she wants me to call the office or that she wants to go to the office to see if her shirt is there. So I ask her, "Did they call your mom?" Yes, the called her grandma who was going to call her mom. "Did they say they'd call the room when she brought a shirt in?" Yes, they did. So I informed her that since they hadn't called that there was no point in going down there to bother them again when they aren't going to have anything for her. I assured her that they'd call when it came. She was stressing about the other kids seeing the hole at recess. I told her to wear her sweatshirt. She informed me of the hives again. I told her it was colder outside and she probably wouldn't be too hot out there. She was pretty sure she would be. I said that she should just not raise her arms them and made her leave. Recess passes without crisis and we come back into the room to wash hands for lunch. Is the holey armpit discussion over? By no means!! She comes up to me while the rest of the class is lining up. We have the same discussion about her wanting to go to the office again. I said no, that it was lunch time and she needed to have lunch and that no one was going to see. Well, by this point she's making SUCH a big deal about it and absolutely not relenting but just standing there in front of me waiting for me to pull a new shirt out of my magic hat that the other kids start to notice and saying things like, "she's crying!" and snickering. So now I'm having to shut them up and get this girl to drop it and get in line for lunch. She is very persistent however and keeps harping on me about her woes. I just kept saying over and over how I was sorry that she was having this problem, but that there was nothing I could do for her - I didn't have a shirt for her to wear, so she could either wear the one she's got and keep her arms down or put the sweatshirt on and risk being too hot. Eventually we leave the room and I drop them off in the cafeteria. I turn around to go back to the room and here comes the girl with her sweatshirt on without her arms in the sleeves shuffling down the hall begrudgingly. We then proceeded to have the SAME CONVERSATION all over again. I'm not exaggerating. At this point another teacher happens down the hall and knows the girl so she ask what the problem is, I explain and this teacher suggests that the girl eat lunch in the office then. She finally agrees to this solution and I get some peace!

I was exhausted by the ordeal though.

When they came back from lunch the girl has a new shirt on. Don't know where it came from and don't care! I was just relieved to be done with that conversation. Moral of the story is: always check your shirt for armpit holes so you won't torment yourself or your teacher with the horror of that particular wardrobe malfunction.

Last-Minute Friday

Well, this blog is a little after the fact, but since I was out of town Friday night and Saturday visiting Dani, I did not have time to write an entry about my day subbing on Friday until now!

This day I got one of the latest calls I'd ever gotten - around 10:50. I'd spent the morning packing and getting ready for my weekend in Vancouver. I was totally not expecting a call by this point, but I guess I should learn to never think you've got this subbing thing figured out, because invariably something completely out of the ordinary happens!

So I scrambled around to change clothes, eat lunch and get all my stuff in the car since I was going to have to leave town right after I was done at the school. Thankfully, the school was one nearby and it was also a school with an earlier release time than some.

I got there and found out from the teacher the reason for the late call: apparently the teacher had wanted to go to some meeting/seminar thing that was that afternoon but didn't want to ask for a sub for the afternoon until one of the other teachers in the school heard about this and said that she should just have them call and see if they could get a sub. Well, they could, and it was me, so here I come strolling into the building at noon. The kids (2nd graders) are outside when I arrived, because this was the day the school was having some jog-a-thon sort of event. Of course it was raining steadily all day, so all the kids came back in completely soaked. The teacher next door told me that she was going to let all of her kids go change if they brought a change of clothes and then just kill time until lunch which was in about 15 minutes. So that was what we did as well. Lots of kids headed to the bathrooms to change, and others sat around and looked at books, or drew or visited. I just supervised...and periodically went over to the girls bathroom to ask to girls to get changed and come back and not be so loud. :) It wasn't long before lunch when I paraded them all up to the cafeteria and returned to the room to read my book (Graceling by Kristin Cashore- which I am still working on, and LOVING by the way).

Since it was raining, the kids had inside recess, which meant they returned to the room after their lunch and played with games. The recess duty people kept an eye on the rooms so I didn't have to be there, but I decided to hang around and visit with the students if any of them wanted to chat with me. Turns out on boy in particular wanted to play games with me. First he brought over a couple Rubik's cubes and wanted me to try to solve it. I manged to get one face all one color - which is the best I can do without instructions - and this had him and some of the other kids around amazed and prompted questions such as, "How'd you DO that?!" I enlightened them by stating, "I just turned it around and around until it looked like that." haha how else do you explain it though?? Then we played Uno and War and he beat me every time - which he was quite proud of....as he should be...because I'm pretty tough competition! haha

After recess the kids had to work on math workplaces which is one of the key components of the Bridges/Investigations math curriculum that all of the Salem-Keizer school district uses. So needless to say I have done them LOTS of time. Teachers generally like to have subs do workplaces, because usually the kids are pretty well trained on how to manage themselves during that time, and it's fairly simple for a sub to supervise. They were finishing up this particular round of stations, so the teacher wanted me to check their folders when they were done to makes sure they'd done all the parts and then let them have free time. It went pretty smoothly, after about 30 minutes most of the kids were done, and I had more of a chance to help a few that seemed really confused finish one of the stations. I also had one sweet little girl offer to help them, so of course I let her. Between the two of us we helped them understand the project and before time was up all of the kids had finished! Yay!

After the cleaned up we did another quick little math activity that I led, and then it was time to pack up and go home. I quickly wrote a letter to the teacher, and got my stuff together and raced out of there. Made it out of town by about 3:45. Traffic was horrible all through Portland and I was very relieved to finally arrive in Vancouver. Had a fun weekend with Dani even though it was quick. Today I had church and then spent the afternoon goofing around with Sarah. And tomorrow we start the madness that is subbing all over again! Only a 4-day week though as Friday is a Statewide Inservice Day. :)

Se Habla Espanol?

ummmm...yeah...that pretty much sums up my day.

End of blog.

haha just kidding! We all know I would not be able to stop talking that soon!

Well, here's the annoying part of my day: I got called at 8:30 this morning to go to a "pre-primary" class at a school in Keizer. By this time in the morning it usually takes around 30 minutes to get to Keizer from my house...and this job had already started! So I was kinda ticked. One, because it seems that I've been getting a lot of late calls lately, and two, because not only was this late, but with the exception of about 2 or 3 schools, this one is about as far from my house as any in the district! Oh, and just before I hung up the phone the person on the other end said, "oh, and it might be bilingual". So I was like, "oooookay?" And she said she wanted to make sure I was okay with that but that she didn't have any more bilingual subs. I told her that I'm not bilingual but I've subbing in bilingual before so I didn't care.

Well...she was right - it was bilingual, well, actually I would just call it all Spanish. In fact, it was the migrant education program. Took me a while to figure out where I was supposed to sign in...I wasn't on the main school's sub sheet, I had to sign in at the migrant program...and their sign in sheet was different, so I'm going to have check my October paycheck closely to make sure it gets on there.

I felt kinda bad for the lady I met when I came into their office. Right away she asked me if I spoke Spanish! "Uhh...no." Look of "oh drat" on her face. She took me to the room, introduced me to one of the assistants and showed me the lesson plans (in Spanish by the way). And I just stood there thinking...well, this is going to be interesting!

The day's schedule was actually similar to Head Start and Even Start in ways. Both of which I'd done before, so that was a little plus in my favor. The other plus for me (which the aides learned throughout the day) was that I did understand most of the Spanish they were speaking even though I couldn't respond with anything coherent.

Little sideline: Head Start is a program in place in many of the Salem-Keizer schools that offers half-day preschool to children of low-income families. During the Head-Start program students receive 2 meals at school, dental and health screenings, and a "head start" on academic subjects. Students learn letters, numbers, shapes, colors and generally how to interact with their peers and adults in a school setting. Even Start is a program that consists of a pre-school for children aged 6 months through 4 years as well as classes for their parents. The child program is similar to Head Start although geared toward younger ages (many children who "graduate" from Even Start move on to Head Start for a year or 2 before Kindergarten). While the kids are in their school the parents have classes in the building to work on English, GED programs, and various other things they want to work on.

The Migrant program was for children at the age of 4 or 5 and was structured pretty much identically to Head Start. But this program also offered parent classes and work time similar to what the Even Start program did.

So while I maybe wan't that useful today, I did learn some stuff!

There were 2 half-day classes that we had today. Both had 11 students present. The kids were really cute and sweet. I did a lot of pointing and miming to communicate with them, but they were troupers and didn't seem too flustered by having me there. The aide did all of the teaching since it needed to be in Spanish, so I became the aide. I helped kids do projects and I sat with them while they were eating and such.

The break between classes was busy as well. I had to call payroll and then the sub coordinator to get a mistake on my paycheck sorted out. Then I had lunch, and then I had to fill in the lesson plan for tomorrow (not sure why they wanted me to do this - they planned it all, but wanted me to write it in...maybe they weren't comfortable with their English writing skills??), and then I laminated some folders and some other random stuff that I can't remember. At the end of the day they had me filing papers, and cleaning up the little house, and folding paper and on and on and on until it was time to leave. And I didn't really mind doing it, but I was sure tired when the day was over! As of now I'm not going back tomorrow, but I suppose they could call me again. While it's not my favorite thing to feel kinda useless, it wasn't difficult, so I wouldn't be upset to go back.

Oh! And during the day I keep seeing mirrors everywhere I turned. So I decided to count them at the end of the day...and there were 35 mirrors in the room! 35!! It was a big room (actually 2 rooms with the divider pulled open) but still - that's a lot of mirrors! Makes you really conscious of what you're wearing. My pants were too long and my shoes too short.

Too cute for words!

This morning I got called at around 8:30 to head off ASAP to a school in south Salem. (Seems like I'm going to south Salem all the time doesn't it? I enjoy it - we'll see how long it lasts!) It was a morning job in a kindergarten class. I got there and the school had their building sub in the room in case I didn't get there before the kids (think I got brownie points for getting there so quick - I didn't bother telling anyone I live like 3 minutes away, because hey, even for living close I did get there quickly - I just get ready fast). But anywho, there was also an assistant in the room so she told me a couple things and then let me read over the plans. It was a pretty simple day for me.

The kids started arriving at 8:50 and in their cute little kindergarten voices, one after the other asked, "Where's my teacher*?" (*they actually used her name, but for the sake of being somewhat anonymous I'm gonna leave it out.) They actually adjusted really well to having me there instead. Often in kindergarten some kid(s) starts crying because their teacher is gone and they don't know me. But here they all just seemed perfectly happy to tell me all their stories and have me sit with them.

We did attendance and then a little writing, followed by something I've forgotten, then snack and recess, then math stations (playing with unifix cubes and pattern blocks), then story (I read the Kailey book) and then they went home. Nothing that was outstandingly amusing happened, but as a whole they were totally cute and REALLY well behaved for kindergarten! The assistant confirmed to me later that they had worked really hard on training them to walk down the halls and listen as well as they did. It was obvious - they were some of the best listeners, and quietest in the halls of all the classes I've ever subbed for. Top 5 easily.

So all in all, it was easy fun day for me hanging with the little ones!

Political Pundits

I've been sitting here for about 5 minutes trying to figure out how to start this blog with a sentence more interesting than "Today I was subbing at..." But alas, I cannot come up with a way, so I'll just start anyways:

I've been to 31 out of Salem's 47 elementary schools during the past year, but today I went to my 32nd school! It was one of the few in south Salem that I hadn't been to. Now that I think about it, during my years of student teaching and substituting I've been in 38 different schools! Wow...that's a lot.

Anyways, I was teaching for the afternoon in a 4th grade class. Their teacher told me that they were a good group of kids but prone to talking. I had to pick them up from recess which is always interesting when subbing for the afternoon because you have NO IDEA which class is "yours"! So I just end up asking some random line if they are Mr. or Mrs. so-and-so's class and they usually aren't, but they always know which line is. So I found the kids and we came back to the room, and they were a bit chatty, but once I started reading their read-aloud book they calmed down.

After a while I had the kids work on reading the Scholastic News magazines and answering the questions on the back. These particular issues were about the presidential race. One focused on the Vice Presidential candidates and the other talked about the Presidential candidates. The students were surprisingly opinionated on the matter. They all kept talking about who they were "going to vote for". And there were opinions on both sides of the spectrum. I listened to one girl spout off about how Obama had "no experience" and how he "keeps saying that he's going to change everything but he doesn't say HOW he's going to do that". Followed immediately by two boys discussing how McCain was clearly the wrong choice because he supported the war in Iraq and he "wants to still have the war". However, I was really impressed at how polite the kids were to each other. These 2 very different opinions happened to be sitting at the same table, and they all calmly explained what they thought, listened to the others and then just moved on. I think we could all learn a lot from the way they managed to have a political discussion without resorting to name-calling and bickering.

We also discussed the differences between the primaries (can only vote for your own party) and the main election (can vote for whoever you want), as well as how everybody's vote is private, and no one has to tell you who they vote for it they don't want to. Oh, and I also had to point out that John McCain and Joe Biden were indeed 2 different people! (Kids got confused by the fact they they both were wearing dark suits and had white hair apparently).

Later in the afternoon we went out to recess which the class was very happy about. (Love it when teachers leave extra recess or a movie for the end of the day - gives me something to hold over their heads all day (or half-day))

Oh, and I almost forgot the tale of the fidget toy! You see, these kids all had these little stress-ball things that they called fidget toys that they made in class that they could bring with them to the carpet and keep at their desks to fidget with during the day. Well, when we were watching a video, one of the kids was throwing his into the air (somehow I didn't see him do it) and it landed on top of the light. He pointed this out to me when the movie was over and I turned the lights on. So in order to prevent a fire hazard I had to keep half of the lights off. The kids all wanted to try to get it down, but I had them go to their seats and start the next activity. Meanwhile, I got a chair and a yard stick and climbed up to try to knock it down. But I just couldn't quite reach it. By this time ALL the kids in the room are facinated my me, their substitute, standing on the chair in the middle of the room. I had some kid grab me a "Whispy" (a curved tube that you hold up to your head like a phone and whisper into one end and listen out of the other end) and I stuck that onto the end of a broom and climbed up again. This time I managed to knock it down and everyone cheered. Who know I was so entertaining?!

Then there was the kid with the shirt of a Mr. Potato-like figure dressed up as Darth Vador (it said "Darth Tator" on top) pointing to a french fry and saying "I am your father!" haha thought that was pretty funny.

Oh, one kid drew me a picture of a squirrel being abducted by aliens. Great stuff.

Primary Therapists

Today was a fairly uneventful day. I subbed in a 1/2 blend for the afternoon at another south Salem school. The kids were sweet, and the stuff I had to do was pretty easy - a little read-aloud, some "health" which was basically about safety, and a little math and sharing and that was it.

The funny thing though was how complimentary these kids were! I think they should be hired out to work as therapists for people with low self-esteem. Seriously, I had been in the room for less than 30 minutes, and multiple kids had told me how they liked my hair, my outfit, my shirt, my glasses, and how I was pretty and nice. And then there was other child who kept randomly hugging me throughout the afternoon. I'd be standing at the door as they were all walking in and he'd just throw his arms around me and hug me. Must have done it at least 5 times. Apparently I just ooze coolness and niceness and the kids just can't help but love me! :)

Big Time Mix-Up!

So today was an all-time interesting morning for me! I got up and got half-way ready this morning at the normal time and then waited around for a phone call. I was kinda wondering if I'd get called to go back to the same class as Friday since the ST told me the teacher was going to be gone again, but I didn't get a call. It was around 8:45 when my phone finally rang. It was the sub office asking me if anyone at that school had talked to me about coming back Monday. I said that the ST had asked me if I was, but that the sub office told me it was only for Friday and no one in the office had asked me to stay. Then the sub office told me that the school had retained me for today. (Retained is the word they use when the job extends past the point it was supposed to end because the school finds out later that the teacher needs another day and then asks the sub if they can stay, the sub says yes, and then they let the sub office know that the sub's going to stay for another day). Anyways. I had to race around and get dressed, grab lunch and run out the door. Unfortunately, this school isn't super close to my apartment, so I had to fight the morning traffic on my way there. I got there and apologized for being late and explained to the office that no one had told me on Friday that they wanted me back for Monday. Then they explained to me that they'd requested a sub originally for both days and that they sub office should have told me. Ahh! Thankfully, no one seemed upset with me or blamed me for the whole thing. The sub office blamed the school, the school blamed the sub office - I don't know who's fault it was but I was glad it wasn't mine!

After that they day was pretty uneventful, the classes were still very nice kids. We did math and reading, and had picture day and it all went pretty smoothly. Even had time for a quick game of quiet ball at the end of the day. I'm hoping I'll get to go back to this class sometime later in the year since they are so easy to handle - also because later in the year the ST will be doing more and those are always fun days for the sub!

First Student Teacher of the Year

Today I subbed in the morning in a 5th grade ESL classroom. At least that's what the sub office called it - technically it was one component of a bilingual program at a school in central Salem. There are 2 bilingual classes for 5th graders - one class is all in English and one is all in Spanish and the kids switch from one to the other half-way through each day. The class I was in was the English class. Both classes of kids were very sweet, funny kids - and both were amazingly small - 17 kids in each class. So that was nice. Also, the class I was in had a student teacher (ST from now on) - a fellow Corbanite even! She seemed familiar to me right away, and later she told me I looked familiar too - asked me if I was on SEA (Student Educator Association is what it stood for I believe). I said that no, I wasn't, but I was a part of the group that "rapped" at the Celebrate Teaching event at the beginning of her freshman year - yeah, she remembered that! That just cracked me up that that crazy stunt is still remembered!

Anyways, the day was incredibly easy for me, although that did make it a little boring. The kids did journal writing in the morning, then went to music, then came back and the ST read them a book then they switched classes. Then the other class did journals, then had lunch, then listened to ST read the book, then did some math, then both classes got together for "Fun Friday" which was when I left since I was only hired for a half-day. The kids were staying for another 30 minutes before dismissal at 12:45 (apparently they have early dismissal every Friday and they don't want to pay for subs for a whole day so the counselor or principal or someone just covers the class for the last half hour). In my case the ST and the teacher next door were there to watch the class.

So neither of us actually did much teaching. The ST was eager to ask me how I thought she was doing, and I said I though she was doing well - although I would like to see her some other time when she was actually having to teach something - I think she'd do a good job of that as well. Apparently this teacher is going to be gone on Monday as well, but when the sub office called they didn't ask for me on Monday as well, so as of right now I'm not doing that. I kinda wish that I was now though since the kids were enjoyable (and such a small group!) and the ST was pleasant. Who knows, maybe they'll call me for that on Monday. Either way, I'm glad it's finally the weekend! Even though I only worked 3.5 days this week I'm still beat! Ready for a day off that I KNOW is a day off! :)

Oh to be 6 years old!

Well I am done with the first-graders today!

They did a better job today, so that was exciting. I talked to them first thing in the morning about having an extra recess and I wrote the word "RECESS" on the board and told them if they had any problems during the day then I'd erase one of the letters and that they had to have at least one left at the end of the day to get their bonus recess. The got down to only the R but we made it! So we had about a 20 minute recess which pretty much makes me a hero in their eyes! :)

I do have one funny story of the day that earns this blog the new tag "too much info" as in stories with too much info! Okay, so it's sometime in the afternoon and the class is cleaning up (or at lease they are supposed to be cleaning up) after the last activity. During this time, this one little boy comes up to me and says, "I don't go poop at the school bathrooms. I don't 'cuz there are too many germs!" To which I replied, "Oh." Then another boy who happens to be listening adds, "I know there are germs so I just put toilet paper on the seat before I sit down. " Then the first boy replies with, "Yeah, well I still don't go poop at school." Ooooookay! Well, that was enlightening gentlemen! Thanks for sharing. haha

So that's about all of interest to write about today. I hope everyone enjoyed learning a bit more about the 6-year-old mind than you ever cared to!

The Little Naughty-pies!

haha I was talking to my mom today and she asked me how the little "first grade cutie-pies" were today, to which I replied - "They were NOT little cutie-pies - they were little naughty-pies!" Hence the title.

So today the little rascals were quite fired-up, and very LOUD! I felt like every time I turned around I was telling them to whisper, or to sit down, or to look at me, or to keep their hands to themselves, or to pay attention, or to be nice, etc. etc. etc! Lots of bickering and yelling and general not-paying-attentioning!

So by the end of the day I was quite tired. As was my voice. I was going to take them out to an afternoon recess but they were so out of control in the afternoon that I just couldn't do it! So I talked to them for a long time about why we weren't going to go after I'd said we could and how they could improve the rest of the day and tomorrow in order to earn that recess tomorrow. We'll see if that works. I'm crossing my fingers but not holding my breath. haha

Oh yeah, I guess I've implied but not stated that they do need me back for this same class tomorrow. And even though they made me work for my money today, it is nice to know where I'm going ahead of time. Plus they kids aren't all bad. For the most part they are actually enjoyable individuals - it's just when you put all 26 of them in a room that's probably climbing towards 80 degrees and it's only the 10th day of school and their second day with a substitute...well....they kinda self-combust. Can't really blame them - but I will hold them accountable!

Wish me luck tomorrow! :)

First Full Day

This morning I was starting to think that I was going to be jobless again today, but then at around 9am I got a phone call from the sub office and instead of being for an afternoon job (as I was expecting) they wanted me to rush out right away for a job where the start time is usually 8:30. Thankfully, it's a school I'd been to before (in south Salem) so I didn't need to figure out how to get there.

Now normally, I HATE these kinds of calls - anyone who knows me at all knows that I don't really do "spur of the moment" stuff that often. So I really hate when it gets to be that time of the morning - when I'm starting to think I'm not working and I start to make other plans - and then the phone rings and I have to do a complete 180 and get ready and dressed in light speed and run out the door. But it didn't bother me as much today for some unknown reason. Although I certainly felt a rushed! Probably didn't help that I stupidly assumed that I wouldn't get a last minute call like that so I hadn't done my hair or gotten dressed or anything! Ahh! Guess I won't do that anymore!

Anyways, I have rambled on the getting called portion of this story because there is not much to tell about the actual day. I got there and the kids were already in the room (24 first graders) and the principal was leading the class. She graciously kept doing the morning routine so I had a chance to look over the lesson plans to see what I was supposed to be doing the rest of the day. We managed to get through probably 90% of what was on the schedule and the kids were fine - it's only the 9th day of school and these guys still getting used to full days and such, so they were easily stirred up and pretty bouncy but that's kinda to be expected and they did seem to improve during the middle part of the day.

One thing that always amuses me about 1st grade (and kindergarten for that matter) is the way they will just blurt out something totally random that has nothing to do with what you're talking about. For example, I was talking to the class this afternoon about raising your hand when you have a question, and how to be polite listeners and such, and a few kids raised their hands and told some story about how they know to raise their hand because blahdy-blahdy-blah. Then another kid raised his hand and told me how he sometimes got to go to his grandma's on the weekend. (Yeah, he was obviously real tuned into our little chat wasn't he?) Then another raised their hand and told me how they liked to go fishing. So then I had to say something about how I like to hear their stories, but they need to save them for another time because right now we aren't having sharing. So this other kid raises his hand and I asked him if he was just telling a story or if he had a question - he assured me it was a question - then proceeded to tell me that he had a Nintendo Wii (with a completely straight face I must add!) Little mischievous rascal. That was the end of question time.

So tomorrow I am going back to the same class which is kinda nice. I know the schedule ahead of time and hopefully I can remember some names. Plus I don't have to do the dreaded "wait for the sentence for the day phone call" in the morning! :D

It's getting late now, so I'm off to bed...otherwise the little 6-year-old will overwhelm me in the morning!!

I'm the best!

Okay, once again I did not get called today (and yes, I did seriously consider titling this blog "Jobless Tuesday" but ...well...I'm trying to be a tad more creative than that) and I'm starting to worry that I'm going to run out of old stories! So if anyone's reading this and can remember a story I told them that I should blog you should remind me. :)

But here's a shorty for today:
This happened when I was subbing in a 3rd grade in a school in south Salem. It was May 16 and I was subbing in this class for the second time I believe although I had been to the school frequently and seen the kids from this class in the halls and such. Anyways, I had their class for the afternoon (I'd been in a different class in the morning) and when one of the kids saw me walk in he or she (honestly can't remember) said something about how they were excited I was their sub and then, "You're the best sub in the whole school because you're actually not mean to us!"

Seriously - should have asked the kid to write me a letter of recommendation or something! :)

Jobless Monday

haha...laughing at my oh-so-creative title to this entry!

Anyways, no job today either. Not too surprised since it is only the 4th day of school for the kiddos of Salem.

But since my mother reminded me, I shall tell another amusing story from last year - perhaps my most amusing one ever! (I shouldn't say that though - I wouldn't want everyone to lose interest from this point on, but oh well - it's been said.)

It was April 17 or 18th and I was subbing in a second grade class at a school in south Salem. I was there for both of those two days and I can't remember if this happened on the first day or second...I'm pretty sure it was the second though. Anyways, the kids eat lunch in their classrooms and during the lunch time this teacher plays a video for them to watch while they eat. It happens to be a Scooby-Doo video and Scooby and the gang are headed to Mexico to solve the latest mystery of a crazed monster who turns out to just be some irritated-schmuck-who-likes-to-wreak-havoc-on-the-neighborhood! Anyways, Shaggy, Velma, Daphne, Scooby and that blond preppy dude who's name I forgot arrive in Mexico to be greeted with singing and dancing. This particular song simply said, "Vivaaaaa...... Mexico!" over and over. The song's been going on for a few seconds when I notice a peculiar look on one little girls face. She smiles and then blurts out in a very loud voice, "Hey! That's like, 'Vivaaa...Viagra!" (This was right around the time when Viagra started airing this charming new commercial with a band who sings that particular ditty (to the tune of the song "Viva Las Vegas") repetitively.) Needless to say I am desperately trying not to smile or laugh at this point. I decided to just let it go and hope no one asked me anything about it. But a few short seconds later, deciding that her little outburst had not gotten the reaction she was hoping for she sang out again, louder this time, "Vivaaaaa....Viagra!!". At this point I had to do something, so I just whispered over to her, "Let's not sing that anymore, ok?" She looked puzzled, but nodded her head and went back to lunch. I was mostly thankful though that she didn't ask me WHY I didn't want her to sing it anymore! :)

Jobless Friday

Today I did not get called to sub, so I decided to tell one of my favorite stories from last year. I tried to find it in my journal but apparently I didn't write it down in there. But I think it was on November 5 - and it was in a Kindergarten class...

The kids started arriving in the morning and looking at books. I sat down with a group of them and talked to them about the books they were looking at. One of the girls asked me to read a book to her so I obliged. Pretty soon I've got a little herd of kindergarteners gathered around me listening to the story. All of a sudden one of the girls listening blurts out "Why do you have a hole in your mouth?" Needless to say I was a little confused by this question. I asked her if she meant there was something in my mouth. She then said, "No, in your lip!". So now I'm thinking maybe I've gotten marker or something on my lip that looks like a hole...or that maybe there's a crack in my lip that I sometimes get in the winter...but I felt my lip and it felt normal. Then I asked some of the other kids if I had something on my lip. They all shook their heads and looked at me with very confused looks on their faces - apparently they didn't know what my questioner was talking about either! But I turned around and she's still staring intently at my lip. The only thing I could figure was that she was noticing how my bottom lip in not flat across but has a indent in the middle. I had to tell her, "I don't have a hole in my lip. My lip's just like that". She let it go but I could tell she was not quite satisfied with my answer. But this little conversation sure had me puzzled - and as soon as I was able to find a mirror I must admit I was taking a pretty close look at my lip to see if there was something weird about it. But there was nothing out of the ordinary - guess I just have naturally freakish lips! Oh the things a kindergartener will tell you! :)

First Day Back!

Well, okay, I guess subbing isn't so bad. Today was one of those days when I go "Oh, yeah! I guess this can be a pretty sweet job...sometimes".

So, today I had the pleasure of hanging out with a class of 5th graders in south Salem - at one of my top 5 favorite schools. This class had I think 21 or 22 students on the roster (AMAZING!), and there were 20 of them there when I arrived, only 19 left when I actually took over (one got called out by the office shortly after I got there). Anyways, when I came in the door a few of them saw me and said "yay!" - so either this was because they remembered me and liked me or they were thinking that they had a new person in the room to torture. I was hoping for the former. :)

Turns out their teacher wasn't leaving until 2, so she had me hole-punch some stuff, and cut up some other stuff, and count some more stuff, and check off still some more stuff. It was pretty simple, and it gave me something to do while everyone was at lunch - I'd eaten before I came.

When they got back from lunch they did some math with their teacher, and I walking around a little, then they did some writing and then sharing of their writing, so I just listened - and laughed and lot because a lot of them were pretty funny with their writing. After this their teacher left and I was supposed to have them do this interview worksheet with a partner. Basically I randomly paired them up by pulling popsicle sticks out of a pile and then I had the kids pass out the papers and then I walked around and made sure they did the worksheet! haha that was some pure teaching skill I tell ya. When they finished we went outside for their second recess and that was it! We came in 20 minutes later and they packed up, cleaned up and I sent them home (a couple minutes early even I was feeling so generous!)

So yeah, I only actually did anything sort of resembling teaching for about 30 minutes and I'm going to get paid for half a day's work! Pretty good deal for me today.

Oh, and turns out the kids (at least some of them) did remember me from last year - hence the "yay"s. Didn't remember my name, but I wasn't too offended - I didn't remember any of their's either! :)