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!