Monet

I swear, I am having such freakish good luck at getting good sub calls that I'm starting to get nervous that it has to end sometime...

Anyway, today I worked for the afternoon in a second grade class. I taught for about 30 minutes. Seriously.

I arrived right at their lunch time. Right after lunch they had an "artist in residence" come to the room. She works at an art studio in Beaverton that does art classes and such for kids and adults (I think). She taught the kids about Claude Monet and the impressionist style of painting. Then she taught them out to make a impressionist painting inspired by Monet's lily pond paintings. Each kids even got a canvas board to paint on! There were all really excited, and their paintings were really cute. I even took a picture of them all lined up to dry for you, my reader. :)

After this session (which was 90 minutes), they had PE. After PE I did a really quick math lesson and then set them to work on their math worksheet.

They were pretty good kids, although I was about to lose it when they were "cleaning up" from the painting project and about 8-10 of them decided to put paint on their hands and rub it around until their hands were green. I was not happy. I spent about 15 minutes standing by the sink supervising them cleaning off the paint. Ugh. But other than that it was good. :)

Looking For Crabs

Well, it's back to work today! I worked this afternoon in a kindergarten class I had not been to before.

It was easy. I did calendar and then taught the same 20-minute reading lesson 4 times to the four groups of kids. I read the book Looking For Crabs to them and then we practiced some sight words.

After this they had music and recess.

At the end of the day I had to stand outside with the kids for about a half hour to wait for them to get picked up. It was freezing outside!! And of course one of the kids didn't get picked up, so after 30 minutes of standing there (we went out 15 minutes early to avoid the big kid rush, and then I felt I needed to wait until 15 minutes after school was out to give up), I took her in to the office and went back to the room to write my note to the teacher and warm up!

What happened to spring??

Green is Good

^ I got to wear a lot because of St. Patrick's Day. :)

I almost forgot to write this!

So Wednesday was the last day of school before conferences, and I was pretty much expecting NOT to work, since teachers have conferences right after school that day until 8. But shockingly, I actually did get called in the morning for a full day job!

Turns out, the teacher (one who I subbed for last week) had lost her voice. She felt fine, but couldn't really talk. So she was there the whole day sort of telling me what she'd like me to do as we went along. (She also printed out a schedule for me, which was nice.) Also, throughout the day she started to get her voice back, so periodically she'd jump in and give some direction.

It was pretty simple for me. I lead a reading group, the supervised them taking their reading tests. I taught a math lesson, then supervised them taking their math tests. After lunch, I gave directions on how to do an art project. That's about it. The rest of the day was filled with lunch, recess, and media!

So, for the two days of the April pay period that got squeezed in before Spring Break - I worked both of them! Good start! Now I feel I earned my vacation. :)

I Am Popular

Today I was happy to get a call to sub all day at one of my favorite schools, for a group of second graders that I've known since last year - despite that the call came at 5:30 in the morning.

The day went well. The second grade classes do a "team teach" sort of thing so I had one group of kids for the morning and a second group for the afternoon, and I just teach the same things over for the second group. Today we did a math worksheet, a 2nd steps lesson (which is basically a guidance/counseling lesson - how to solve problems and such), a science activity and another math worksheet. Both classes were pretty good, although the afternoon bunch was a little mellower.

In the afternoon, the kids had PE. After I dropped them off I went upstairs and poked my head into the kindergarten class I subbed for a couple weeks ago. They were having snack, so it was pretty good timing. They seemed excited to see me and a bunch got up to give me hugs. :) I told them how I was subbing in 2nd grade today and that once when the 2nd graders were too loud I told them the kindergarteners were quieter than they were. This amused the kindergarteners a lot. They spent the rest of the time telling me stories about anything and everything. It was very fun - I miss this class!

Cats

Today I learned about how to take care of you cat. (Haha, as if I'll ever need that information! But I'm a good student, so I listened politely.)

Why learning about cats? Well, I was subbing this afternoon in a first grade, and at the end of the day a person from the Humane Society came to give the "Pet Club" lesson. And today's topic was cats.

The class also had recess and PE during my time with them. The only thing I had to teach was ELD (English Language Development - it's a bilingual class). It was just as well because they were really chatty. I was relieved to have a small amount to do.

Tomorrow, unless I get a full day job before the morning, I will be subbing in a different 1st grade at the same school for the afternoon.

Less Eventful

Today no one threw up.

For that I am glad.

However, today I have nothing interesting to write about. It was just pretty typical. We had that "team time" thing again in the morning. My dance skills improved slightly - or so I like to tell myself. The teacher was actually in the room until about 10. She was doing something at her desk. That always makes things a little weird.

We had silent reading and a reading test. After PE, we read a Scholastic News paper about Ireland. Then they had lunch. In the afternoon we did math, and then an art project. The kids got louder little by little throughout the day, but were mostly good.

Tomorrow, there is no school in Salem-Keizer because of a grading day. I still have to get up early though because I'm babysitting Kailey and Kenna for the day.

Silent Spew

Ok, wow it was an eventful day today! Let's start at the beginning.

I arrive at the second grade class I am subbing today and find the teacher still there. She is getting a lesson plan ready. I do a couple things for her and then the student arrive. They are puzzled by me because they see their teacher is still in the room, so clearly I'm not a substitute. Five minutes later we are leaving for the gym for their morning "team time". Basically we go to the gym with everybody else and do some simple step dances. The selected songs for today were: the bunny hop, Cotton-eyed Joe, YMCA, and something else that I can't remember the name of. I was not very skilled at the dances, but a few girls were happy to try to teach me the steps.

A little later we return to the room. I take attendance, read a book aloud, etc. Then they switch rooms for reading. I get a slightly altered group of kiddos, and we start read to self time for 20 minutes. About halfway into this time I find myself at a table in the front of the room looking over the materials for the day. One group of students sits at a table directly behind me. It is really quiet in the room when I hear a couple of the kids from behind me softly gasp. I turn to see what's up and discover that one of the other students at this table has just thrown up all over himself, the table, and the book he was reading. I tell the other kids to move, and quickly write this kid a pass to the office. He's out the door and, besides the 3 at his table, no one else in the room has even noticed! That's how silent his throwing-up was! Shocking. Anyways, we call the janitor, it gets cleaned up, the kid goes home, no one is too traumatized - although I did have the urge to wash my hands a lot!

In other news:

• It was freakishly cold at recess. I even sent one boy inside because he had a light coat on and was shivering and complaining about being freezing.
• A person from OSU came to give a health lesson and I didn't realize they were coming. I had to work about an hour less which was nice, but it did make the clean up at the end of the day a bit crazy because we had so little time.
• Their teacher is still sick, so I'm going back tomorrow. Hopefully my dance skills will improve and no one will puke.

Catapulting Marshmallows

Today I jumped up a few grades to fourth grade. They were ok, although I did miss my little kindergarteners.

We did have a comical moment at the end of the day though. One boy brought in this catapult that he made out of a milk carton, pencils, a spoon and rubber bands. He also brought some mini marshmallows in hopes that he could demonstrate it to the class. At the end of the day I had him come up to try it out. We set the garbage can about 10 feet away as his goal. He pulled the catapult back and released the marshmallow. It was clearly going too long to hit the garbage, but that little mallow was not to be discouraged. It hit the back of a chair a few feet behind the garbage can, bounced onto the seat of the chair, and off that into the garbage can! The class erupted in cheers and hollering that I'm sure what loud enough to be heard at the other end of the hallway. One other student exclaimed, "That was AWESOME! You're like Michael Jordan!"

I Think I'm Done

Well, it's Friday, and I think I'm done subbing for my kindergarteners. I supposed we will see what happens come Monday. It was fun though.

Today was busy. We had an assembly in the morning, then an unexpected guest reader, media (computer lab), PE, and to top it off - it was popcorn Friday! What is popcorn Friday you ask? Well, each class gets a big envelope in the morning and kids can buy a bag of popcorn (25¢), a licorice rope ($1), a roll of mentos (75¢), or a bag of fruit snacks (50¢). They put their money in the envelope and the teacher records who ordered what. At the end of the day the treats are distributed to the classrooms and the teacher passes them out. It makes the end of the day a bit crazy. Especially when they come back from PE only 5 minutes before the bell rings. I've done the popcorn Friday thing many times at this school, so at least I'm used to it. And it does help A LOT when you already know the kids' names and don't have to ask each one!

Anyways....haha I ramble.

The kids were good today, and I felt pretty good about the week overall. And the assistant said the same, so that's nice.

I hope I'll get a chance to go back to this class again before the year's out! And I'm looking forward to the next time I'm in the building - I'm hoping I'll be greeted with many excited exclamations of my name. :)

I Could Call This 101 but....

...that might seem a little repetitive.

Today, again I spend my day with the same kiddos. They are starting to be less excited when they see me in the morning. Most of the reactions are something like, "You're STILL here?!" Not exactly the way you wish to be greeted! A couple times I said, "Well, I hope you still like me a LITTLE!", to which they usually replied yes, but that they missed their teacher. I comfort myself by imagining that they will miss me when I am gone too! :)

Funny tidbit of the day: I was reading a Dr. Seuss story to the class called (I think), "The Big Brag". Its one of the stories in the book Yertle the Turtle. While the rabbit and the bear are arguing over who is the best animal there is (and I am reading about it), a boy in the back exclaims, "That's not true! He's not the best - God is!"

Clearly someone's been paying attention in Sunday School. :)

100s Day

Today was the 100th day of kindergarten!

We made 100s day glasses (the 0s were the eye holes), necklaces with 100 beads, ate cookies, wrote about they would do when they were 100, read a story with a 100 word (which was much shorter than they thought it would be!), they read 100 words to me, wrote for 100 seconds, did math with the number 100 in it, and sang a song that counted from 1 to 100!

It was busy, and I'm tired, and don't care to write much more. I think I'm going back tomorrow.

99

Today is the 99th day of school. (At least for kindergarten.) It is also Dr. Seuss' birthday/Read Across America Day. We had lots of guest readers and we had a Reading is Fundamental (RIF) book giveaway in addition to the regular schedule. The day went by pretty quickly.

Tomorrow will be the 100th day! (As if you couldn't already figure that out.) We will probably be doing lots of 100s themed things. As of right now, as far as I know, tomorrow is my last day with this class. Although I don't wish for their teacher to be really sick, I'm sorta hoping she just decides to take it easy and take the rest of the week off! We shall see...

Unexpected Return

Much to my surprise I found myself working in the same kindergarten today as last week. Apparently their teacher is really sick and is going to be out until at least Wednesday. Stinks for her, but it's quite nice for me! I have 3 days already this week!

The kids were ok today. They were kinda loud, but certainly low on the scale of terrible. I don't have any really funny or interesting stories, so I'm going to leave it at that. Perhaps tomorrow I will have funny tales to tell. Apparently tomorrow is Dress Up as Your Favorite Book Character Day. We didn't actually mention this to our class, but I overheard someone else talking about it. I'm going to dress "non-committally", but bring some adaptations for my outfit to turn it into a costume...just in case! :)