St. Patrick's Day

This may be my last entry before spring break.  Tomorrow is the last day of school for kids in Salem-Keizer as Thursday and Friday are conferences.  Some schools are even opting to do conferences after school tomorrow and for 12-hours on Thursday so they have Friday off.  Anyways, what this means for me is that it's likely I won't get a job tomorrow because teachers are getting ready for conferences.

Anyways, today I had a job with my frequently-visited bilingual 3rd grade class.  They were much better today, so it was fun.  We even had a little extra time at the end of the day so we played "Heads Up - 7 Up".  I had a good laugh when one of the boys tried to explain to me how it's played.  I stopped him and told them that yes, I actually DID know how to play the game!  Kids think grow-ups are just naturally dumb about all things "kid" I think.  Other than that it was pretty uneventful.  Which is much preferred over the trying day I had last time with these guys!  

I Forgot the Title

I had a very clever title worked out for this post as I was thinking about my day on the way to my car after school today.  I have since forgotten it.  Hence the non-title.

Today was much more enjoyable than yesterday.  The kids were mostly well behaved and good listeners.  They just had the typical "it's Friday and I'm in second grade" stuff, but that seems so nothing to me now.

Oh!  I remember the title now...it was going to have something to do with today being Friday the 13th and how it wasn't that horrifying...it's actually not that clever after all.  I think I'll stick with the non-title.  When you hang out with 7- and 8-year olds all day you start to think of yourself as much funnier than you are.  They laugh at anything.  Funny voices.  Saying things like, "I think my brain fell out!". Making goofy faces.  Everything.

Yes, I did actually say I thought my brain fell out.  I've been finding myself tongue-tied a lot this week.  When trying to give directions or something I just keep tripping over my words.  It's frustrating!  To avoid embarrassment I make fun of myself by saying to the kids my brain fell out.  They enjoy this.  Makes them laugh.

I'm using a lot of partial sentences in the blog today, which is such a bad example of writing!  I guess I could justify it by saying it is a purposeful mistake used to create a unique writing style that mimics the stream-of-consciousness thoughts that I'm having right now.  Plus I've seen it in books so it's not against the law of all things written - it's a style!

Anyways, I taught a lot of heath today - two lessons, twice.  This class and the class next door trade teachers/classrooms halfway through the day.  The teachers then teach the same subjects from the morning to the afternoon class.  I also facilitated a math assessment (short little one).  And then, because I'm pretty much the coolest sub ever (or so they told me) I let the classes have a little free time.  Heck, it's Friday, they were good, and I couldn't put my thoughts into words anymore so I thought we all deserved it!

Oh yeah, and this is my 70th post! Yay!

Hi. I'm Sick!

This was my very first greeting of the day today!  Isn't that great?  This particular girl then proceeded to tell me the tale of how she'd had her tonsils removed and it made her sick, and her throat hurt and her nose hurt and her stomach hurt and she'd thrown up yesterday and maybe she felt like she would again, and yesterday her babysitter had to rub her back and stomach because it hurt so much but now it hurts more!  Oh my.  I asked her why she came to school if she was that bad.  She said her mom said she had to because you're only allowed 14 absences (or what?) and she'd already had 13.  I told her to just tough it out for a while and we'd see how it went.  After nearly an hour she was still complaining so I relented and sent her to the office.  She came back about 20 minutes later and told me they'd called her mom and she'd said that the girl was fine.  So she was stuck with me for the rest of the day looking like death warmed over.

The rest of the class made up for her catatonic state though.  They were very loud and prone to not listening to me.  I gave a couple of lectures on respect.  I even bribed them with game time at the end of the day if they could prove they deserved it by doing their work staying under control.  It should have worked wonderfully, and I thought it was going to for a while.  But they, shall we say, fell off the wagon?  The last half of the day was easily the hardest.  They didn't get game time.  But hallelujah!  I made it to the end of the day.  And tomorrow, I'm heading off to one of my favorite schools (where I was requested!) and am anticipating a much better day. :)

Knock-Knock and Riddles

Last night I found a job on the sub site before I went to bed.  It was only a half-day (morning) but I figured, with the way things were going, even if a full-day job did come up tomorrow, I wouldn't get it - roommate would.  So I took it, despite it being at a school on the complete other end of town.

I got there and read the teacher's note.  It seem liked a fairly straight-forward day.  Then I got to the end of her note where she proceeded to tell me that they were a challenging group behavior-wise and then listed about 6 kids who had various issues, from yelling out, to defiance.  Great.  But, it is my constant striving - despite whatever horrors I hear from the office staff, assistants or teachers - to not let such poor reports make me judge a class before I meet them, or let myself fall into the trap of expecting poor behavior because they are known for it.  I fully believe that if you expect poor behavior, you are going to get it.  If I treat them like I expect to receive exemplary behavior, many times they will comply.  Certainly, this is not always the case, but on many occasions have I spent the day with a class which was infamous for negative behavior and had a simply fine time with them.

Anyways, it was a small group - only 20 on the roster and only 14 or 15 present (I can't remember now).  They were definitely energetic, and I could see why certain students had deserved mention on the teacher's note.  But truthfully, they weren't that bad.  I kept my thumb on a few who were prone to getting off-task, didn't answer their questions when they yelled them out, and gushed over any kid who raised his/her hand or was doing his/her work.  The assistant in the room told me she thought they did pretty well, so that was good.

When I turned my phone on after school I had a non-message from the sub machine (it's automated and won't read the job until you punch in your ID and PIN, but my voicemail does catch the tail end of the schpeel before it hangs up.)  I'm guessing it was for a PM job, but there was nothing I could do about it at that point - it was too late.  Oh well.  Instead I went to my aunt's house and saw my cousins (once-removed).  Kailey and I found a website with riddles and knock-knock jokes which she was VERY excited about!  She particularly loved this one:

What's the difference between a train and a teacher?

-A train says, "Choo Choo" and a teacher says, "Spit out your gum!"

Alas, No Job!

It's been a nearly a week without work!  Friday was a grading day, so I knew I wouldn't be working then, but I've been without jobs the Thursday before that and then both yesterday and today.  It's frustrating.  Especially when your roommate gets jobs (simply by luck of the draw) all of those days.  I'm trying to stay occupied.  Just thought I'd say I've not disappeared...although the sub system seems to think I have.

Do have a job for Friday though!  I'm hoping I can get some stuff for the days between now and then as well. :)

Apocalypse Now

Well, my headache has finally gone away!  Today was definitely an adventure.  My lovely morning started off with my phone awakening me at 5:30 from a bizarre dream about subbing (more on that in a minute).  The machine recited a job offer to me of a first/second grade blend I've been to a few times already this year.  I took it, and then laid in bed for a while trying to separate the reality of being awake at 5:30 to the fantasy of my dream, which, in part, involved me wandering around a teacher-filled, completely dark labyrinth of a school in my pajamas, trying in vain to escape from people in order to put my clothes on.

So back to reality - I headed off to school a few hours later.  I've been in this class 3 or 4 times already this year, so the kids remembered me, and I remembered some of them.  The day started off interestingly when we got to their reading stations time and realized the chart that showed what stations they were supposed to go to had not been rotated.  I thought I remembered how to do it, so I moved them quickly.  But soon after half of the kids were complaining that they'd done those ones before.  I tried again but with no more success.  We wasted about ten minutes doing this before I finally just randomly sent them places and told them to do it again.

We had more problems right after lunch.  The kids were great during lunch time - they eat in the room.  But when I took them to dump their trays one kid fell on the stairs (not sure if he wasn't looking, or what) and spilled the salad and ranch he didn't eat all over the floor.  Then a bunch of  boys were running in the cafeteria and throwing food into the garbage cans and missing, and it was just a mess.  I suppose you could say I yelled at them when I finally got them all in line.  Told them that just because there is a janitor to clean up messes at the school doesn't mean that you should be making messes on purpose.  Then I walked them up to use the bathrooms before music and the boys again were goofing around in the bathroom.  I was so irritated with them by this point!  Thankfully I got rid of them for an hour when I took them to music and PE.

When I retrieved them from PE the counselor took about 5 of the boys for a weekly session.  It was SOOO much calmer when we got back to the room without them!  However, one boy was mad that he DIDN'T get to go with them.  So he pitched a fit and wouldn't do anything and basically walked out of the room.  Thankfully, we had an adult helper in the room at that point and she followed him out.  He ended up at the office for the rest of the day.  My boys came back from the counselor for the last half hour, and the SECOND they walked in the door the noise level tripled and behavior started to deteriorate all around the room.  It was like bad-behavior cancer - it just spread everywhere!  I quickly ended writing time and had them put things away.  That took FIVE minutes and they didn't even half to leave their seats!  It was so annoying!  All they had to do was put their papers in their folders, put the pencils in the pencil cup, and stack the folders at the end of the table.  But my 5 little horsemen of the apocalypse (yes, my apocalypse has five) were just plain not listening and each one getting their tables distracted and talking.  I managed to reel them in though and get everyone to get their coats and backpacks and start cleaning up the room relatively calmly.  

As the bell rang and I said a cheerful and relieved goodbye to the class at the door, I looked up to see my little tantrum-thrower returning from the office and literally taking a flying LEAP down the hallway.  Seriously, he was running a full speed and throwing his body into the air.  He then slammed into the wall/floor on his way down and started to groan.  Another teacher and I both yelled out his name at the same time, and the other teacher said she thought he needed to go back to the office to wait to get picked up.  So while I was ready to just shove him out the door and be done with him, I had to follow through with this now.  I've also still got a girl in the room waiting for her big sister to come get her.  Tantrum goes back to the closet area (which is a row of hooks behind a partial wall.  He sits on the floor and pouts.  I went back to deal with him.  Took his backpack off the hook and said, "Ok, let's go."  He informed me that he was, in fact, "NOT going anywhere!!!".  I said, "Well, you're certainly not staying here all day, and you aren't going home with me, so get up."  He then stood up, reached for his backpack and tried to yank it out of my hand.  I held on and said, in what I like to think of as my low and scary voice, "Excuse me.  We do not YANK things out of peoples' hands.  If you would like to have your backpack you need to ask me for it, but trying to rip it out of my hand is unacceptable.  If you would like it, you may say, 'Miss Barnes, may I please have my backpack?'"  He then let go and wouldn't look at me.  So I waited a minute and gave it to him and told him to start walking.  Right about then the principal and counselor arrived and lead him out to find whoever it was that was picking him up.  I could barely keep myself from and exasperated eye-roll at the sweet little girl that was still hanging around waiting for her sister.  She had the greatest look on her face though - a sort of, "what is wrong with these people?!" kind of expression.  My thoughts exactly!  If only they were all that sweet.  To all those people that think teachers are paid to much - I'd like to see you live through that day after day.  You'd change your tune pretty quickly I imagine.

Glitter!

Today was probably one of my faster-moving days of the year.  I was subbing in a morning kindergarten class and it just seemed like I was barely there for a few minutes before I was taking the kids out front to get picked up!

Here's a smattering of what we did:

I introduced an activity where the kids would draw a picture of their favorite book as well as write the name of it.  The paper they were drawing/writing on already had the words, "My favorite book is ______" on it.  I was going around the room asking kids what book they picked and helping them write the title.  I came to one boy and asked him what book was his favorite.  He proceeded to tell me about his picture ("Its and alien and a person and the alien is attacking.  See his arms?  See the spaceship?  See, that's the alien and that's the person.  The alien is attacking.  See his arms there?  That's his spaceship." - you get the picture).  I asked him what book this was from.  He then told me about his picture again.  I told him I liked his picture, and asked again what book it was from.  He told me about his picture - again.  I interrupted him and asked, "I know, but what book is this from?  What book did you pick as your favorite?  What is it that you wrote here?".  He then told me.....about his picture - AGAIN!  I finally gave up and wrote on his paper that the book was called "Aliens".  (I wrote the correct spelling on their paper after they attempted to write something and told me about it - that way the teacher would know what it was because some were nowhere close to right or they were illegible.)

Later in the day we did a project for the 100th day - which is tomorrow for these kiddos.  They made glasses that looked like the number 100 - the 0s being the holes.  They colored and then I helped them add glitter glue accents to the glasses.  This was very exciting for them but did result in some very large globs of glitter glue that may not be dry by tomorrow!  I was like a broken record saying, "Squeeze gently!  Don't turn the nozzle anymore, they're already open.  Gently, gently!  Don't squeeze so hard, please."  Oh well, they had fun and the glasses look much prettier after the kids "made them POP!" as one girl put it. :)

Feels Like a Full Moon

Just ask any teacher and chances are they will tell you that it seems like kids are just a little more wound up than usual when it's a full moon.  That what it felt like today.  Unfortunately, it's not a full moon so the kids today were just rowdy for no reason.

I got called this morning shortly after I got up to go to this bilingual 3rd grade that I've been to quite a few times this year.  All times before I've enjoyed them and found them to be a pretty nice, well-behaved group of kids.  Today though things were just off.  We had lots of problems with talking out of turn, people of out their seats and generally ignoring directions.  We didn't get to all the stuff on the schedule, and they had to sit and listen to me talk about my expectations and how they weren't meeting them.  It wasn't the most fun.

And to add to the madness: all the clocks in the building were one hour ahead today.  So I was faced with kids convinced that it was lunch time even though it was way too early as well and the never-ending stream of "what time is is?" questions.  I tried to tell them that they could look at the clock and just subtract one hour, but that went right over their heads, so they just asked me over and over and over!

So it wasn't an all-time fun day, but neither was it an all-time horrible day.  It just wasn't that enjoyable.  Oh well, the pay's the same!