Blastoff!

Finally back to working today - I just wish I'd had more notice! Got called at about 8:20 for an 8:30 job. After a quick run around to get ready, I arrived at the school, in the room to realize that I've been in this class already this year! (I was pretty sure the teacher's name was familiar).

She was still there when I arrived and was typing up lessons. Unfortunately, the lessons she had me doing were pretty vague and a little challenging for a sub. Lots of big chunks independent work time that's hard to manage when you don't know the kids very well. We did writing in Spanish (thankful for help from the IA!), the same exact writing in English, and counting practice. That's it for the whole day. See what I mean about big chunks of time?

The math was supposed to be about an 50 minutes worth of time and the direction I was given was to practice counting backwards. I was at a loss as to how this could possibly be made to take 50 minutes and not bore the kids out of their minds. Thankfully, I remembered this game I'd read about for spelling and I adapted it for the backwards counting. We called it "Blastoff". We'd start at some number and count backwards, one number per kid, down to zero. The kid after zero would say "blastoff!" and sit down. Then we'd continue from a new number with the next kid, so on and so on until there was only one kid left. They liked this, although there were a few that didn't pay very much attention; however, I think it worked a lot better that just sitting at their desks with their hundreds sheet and counting!

There was some talk of the teacher wanting me to come back tomorrow before she left, but when I left school there was no more word from her, so I guess she's feeling better.