Who Needs Lunch?

Not me apparently!

So today started out looking pretty nice and simple. I got called in the morning to sub for the morning half of the day in a kindergarten that I love. They also have a student teacher in this class so it looked like I'd be doing mostly one-on-one stuff with kids, not actually teaching.

Well, when I got there, the student teacher wasn't there. Then the IA arrived and the ST still wasn't there. He never did arrive in the time I was there and they were wondering what had happened to him. So I ended up doing the calendar with the kids while the IA got the morning work ready for the kids. Then I pulled kids out one at a time to read with me while I did running records. (When the teacher came in at noon she told me I was one of the very few people (the only?) who she trusted to do that job because she could actually understand my running records.)

So this basically took us up to lunch, which I didn't take because I was going home at noon. I instead did some photocopying. Well, at right about 30 minutes before I'm supposed to leave, the office manager comes down and says the sub office just called her and asked me if I could go to another school for the afternoon. I agreed, but had her tell them I wouldn't be able to get there right on time. They said that was OK.

The teacher got back, we chatted for 5 minutes and then I raced out the door. I'd thought I swing in to some fast food place and grab something for lunch, but traffic was bad and I was already late enough as it was so I just had to skip lunch.

I got to the second school to find out the kids weren't even there yet! (Now I'm longing for my missed lunch). I met the IA, who was uncomfortably quiet. I'm not sure if she was super shy, or didn't speak much English, or what, but she probably spoke 15 words to me all day. It was a little awkward - I didn't know what to say half the time!

The class was small, and thankfully it was pretty easy. I read a couple books, sang a couple songs, and then supervised them while they did their "jobs" (centers). About an hour and 15 minutes before the end of the day they had a school-wide assembly. We went to the gym and watched the hour-long talent show. The acts were a mixture of singing, dancing, and instrument-playing. We heard lots of Taylor Swift and Justin Beiber. It was pretty funny to watch the audience during these songs and they were invariable mouthing the words along with the act. A few of the singers were pretty good. One girl who sang a song called "Concrete Angel" was pretty talented, as was a boy who sang "Grenade", although he had a lack of timing. I'm still amazed that he managed to somehow finish at the same time as the music! It was fun, and a welcome relief to the awkward communication that was happening in the room before then. :)

Tall Tales and Component Cables

I suppose I shall call today's call a late one. Not that I was rushed to get there, but I had already given up on a job for today when the call did come.

Decided to take the job even though I swore off doing fourth grade at this school a couple years ago. I wanted the money and I'd enjoyed my fourth graders last week, so I was hoping for luck.

Turned out not too bad.

I ended up supervising lunch, reading a book aloud, supervising RIF (Reading is Fundamental) giveaway, supervising independent reading, supervising writing, and finally, playing a video!

The video part was my idea and almost bombed on me. The class is studying different styles of imaginative writing, one of which is "tall tales". I happened to have a DVD in my bag of the Disney cartoons of Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan, etc. The teacher had told me I could just choose one of the imaginative books to read at the end of the day, so I figured the DVD applied too. I told the kids we were going to watch one of the cartoons (which they were very excited about), but then I had trouble getting the sound to play on the projector! It took about 5 minutes to get all the cables situated so it worked, and by then we were getting close to the end of the day, so while we started the video, we didn't finish. But since we were interrupted by going-home-time, they didn't seem too perturbed. :)

Hail is Evil

Today was a whirlwind of a day!

First, I got called at 8:20 for this job that started at 8:30. It was way across town, for a 3/4 blend, bilingual, and I just didn't really want to do it! So I turned it down.

A couple minutes later, I get another call from the real-live-person line of the sub office. Basically, they really needed a sub for the class, and were having trouble filling it.

It's a lot harder to say no to a live person than a recording!

So I took it.

By the time I arrived, some adult was in the room was taking the kids to music, after which they had PE. I had about a hour to myself to read over what I was doing and figure out how I was going to go about it.

On the whole, the kids were alright. Chatty, but not terrible.

The worst part of the day was during their lunch time, when I was one lunch duty. See, there was one other adult in the room, and I wasn't exactly sure if I was supposed to be in charge or if she was. And she didn't seem too bothered by some of the insanity that was going on, and I wasn't sure if I should jump in, or if I'd be stepping on her toes. Probably wouldn't even have mattered if it hadn't started hailing during their lunch! Of course, the kids see whitish precipitation falling outside, and what do they immediately yell? "SNOW!!!!!" Calming them down after that point was futile. They were jumping up and down, running to the windows, screaming - it was madness. Once we finally left to go back to the room (which, unfortunately is a portable, heck, even the main building isn't connected to the cafeteria!) the kids were sliding around on the slushy ground, picking up slush balls and throwing them at each other, and generally stomping up the ramp and yelping and making as much noise as possible! Hail. Evil. I tell you.

Shockingly (haha), it melted in about 5 minutes and we moved on with the day.

I hate winter weather. Sunshine please!

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.

Too Many Grown-Ups

This morning I got another late call for the same job I did on Friday - Even Start preschool for kids 3 and under. It was much the same as Friday except that it was really nice out so we took a walk around the (very picturesque) neighborhood. It was an okay day except sometimes I didn't know what to do! Basically my instructions were to play with the kids. Sometimes the IAs would decide to start some project but didn't usually tell me what they were doing so I wasn't sure if they wanted me to help or just keep playing.

Also, there were 7 adults in the room today! (Normally there are 4. I don't know who the other 3 people were- no one ever told me. But they knew the kids so I guess they must come fairly frequently.) Shortly after I got there the director came in and saw me walking around the room observing the kids. He then went into this long description of how to get down and play with them ....guess he didn't notice that there were no kids that weren't already playing with an adult in a too crowded area.

Anyway, it was an okay day but I'm hoping for bigger kids tomorrow and less adults so I actually feel useful!

I Chase Children

This morning I got called by a real life person at the sub office! It was kind of late in the morning (around 9) when they called, asking if I would go sub at Even Start for the morning. I said yes (much to the relief of the lady who called me) and dashed over. I've subbed in this program before, but it's been a couple years. Surprisingly, the director(?) and the IAs both said they thought I looked familiar when I came in.

Basically, Even Start is for kids age birth to 3. The kids are with us while their parents are next door having some sort of classes.

So I played with tiny kids today and got paid. When at recess, a few of the boys decided it would be fun if a chased them. They don't speak much English, but they were all yelling, "Get me teacher! Get me!" So I "chased" them around, by which I mean I walked really slowly after them, as they are tiny and therefore have tiny legs. But you'd think I was running full speed at their squeals and giggles. Then they'd hide under the play structure and I'd creep up slowly and poke my head under and say "boo" and they'll all run out laughing and squeaking. This went on for a very long time! :)

Anyway, it was a pretty simple day, and pretty much all I did was play with the kids, keep them from dumping their lunch trays on the floor and sweep up after they were gone. I wouldn't want to do it everyday, but it was fun for today.

Pedrito

This week has started out slow but today I finally got back to work. Unfortunately I got called really late and had to rush around to get there on time. On the plus side, I get paid the same amount for less work!

The job came up as K-1 blend but I think it may have just been 1st grade. The kids were nice but they did not listen very well! The teacher had this listen signal that she put in her note: I was supposed to raise my hand and say "pedrito" and they were supposed to repeat it and look at me and stop what thru were doing and such. Except that they didn't do that! I had to repeat it 2 or 3 times and nearly yell at them to "stop" and " look at me"! I don't even know what "pedrito" means! I looked it up and it's not in my Spanish dictionary!

It wasn't all bad though- they did seem to like me and no one was a big problem. I got lots of random hugs and one girl informed me that I looked pretty. Also, one of the girls I knew from head start preschool 3 years ago! She was a bit of a challenge then, but was very well behaved now. I even talked to her a while about when I was in her preschool class and she smiled and said she remembered. It's fun to see kids years later from when you met them. :)

This concludes my first post from my iPhone. (I forgot to write this before I turned my computer off.) Hope it looks normal!

Author Visit

Just as I was about to give up for today I got called to work at around 7:50! This left with me with about 25 minutes to get dressed, throw together a lunch and drive to the school. I'm not sure my outfit matched, and I am sure my lunch was strange!

The class was almost all kids I've known for two years. Last year I subbed in both of their classrooms a lot. So I was pleased when the kids arrived exclaiming, "Hey! It's Miss Barnes!" - despite the fact they've had subs for the past 3 or 4 days. One girl even remembered me from subbing in her first grade class over two years ago at a different school - a class I subbed in for only 2 or 3 days! Funny how kids remember stuff.

Turns out there were no plans for me. But the principal was in the room when I arrived, and he and the other third grade teacher sketched out some times and ideas for me. The assistant and I figured out the specifics a little later. It ended up not being too complicated. We did a short reading lesson and then went to the cafeteria to hear an author presentation by Larry Dane Brimner. After this we had some extra time I wasn't expecting so we had snack and sharing (which they were begging for). Then came PE, writing and recess/lunch. After lunch we did math - which was the biggest challenge of the day. The lesson involved a lot of me talking and them listening. Some had a hard time with the listening. But I am persistent, and we made it through, and ended the day with silent reading. All in all, not too bad for a slightly impromptu day.

Too Many Giggles

I got called really late today. The call came at 8:20. The start time listed was 8:30. The time that school actually starts is 8:00. So by the time I got there the kids had been in school for nearly an hour.

There were also no plans. However, there was an assistant who filled me in on what to do throughout the day. At one point I read story, but had to stop partway through because a few of the boys were laughing really loudly every time I took a breath. It was annoying. We did finish it later after I gave a talk about how it's ok to laugh, but you need to be in control of yourself and quiet down when it's time to move onto the next page. They did better after that.

Then I got to take them to PE at 1:45. From there they had music and then they went home from there. I spent a good part of the afternoon reading - which I enjoyed.

Famous in Another School!

Just about the time this morning when I had given up on getting a call for the day, and bemoaning the fact that I'd only gotten one day in this week, my phone rings. The current time? 9:30. The start time for this job? 8:30. The time it takes to get there from my house? About 20 minutes. So I ran around getting dressed, throwing together a lunch and running out the door. I arrived at 10 to the relieved greetings of the office staff.

I learned that apparently they'd had a sub for this assignment quite a bit in advance. Then this morning, the sub never showed up. The school eventually called the sub office to find out what was going on. They got the sub's number and called her. Only at the exact time that they were calling her she made herself unavailable on the sub site. So they put in a new job request and that's when the system called me.

I started off the day in one of the bilingual first grades (the classroom of a friend of mine, actually). She told me she was happy to see me and they actually liked me better than the sub they were supposed to have! I supervised some writing, and independent reading, did a writing sample (in Spanish! - the kids helped me with some of it), then supervised their writing time. Finally I read a story, took them to get lunch and sent them out to recess. Then it was my lunch time.

After lunch, I went to the other first grade bilingual class next door. With this class I sort of supervised a writing activity while also helping kids (one at a time) finish wrapping their Mother's Day present. Then I took them to Music.

Then I went back to the first class! I got some stuff ready while they were in PE and then picked them up after a half-hour. We did calendar, math, and then a health test. About a half-hour before the end of the day their teacher came back and I went to the second classroom again!

And I did calendar with them!

It's May 7th by the way. The 144th day of school. It's sunny. You can make 7 cents with a nickel and 2 pennies, 144 has 1 hundreds, 4 tens and 4 ones. It's Friday. When the hour hand is pointing to the 9 and the minute hand is pointing to the 2, it's 9:10, 3 red magnets and 2 blue magnets makes 5 magnets - which is also the amount of days we've been in school in May. Yes, calendar for 25 minutes does drag out a bit.

Once that was done, and I'd scolded a couple boys and sent them to opposite sides of the room, it was time to go home! I lined them up and walked them out front and then stood around for 15 minutes or so while I waited for all of them to get picked up.

After school I went to the book fair in the library. And I did not buy anything! Be impressed.

So it was a busy, tiring day, but it was good to have something productive and money-making to do! It was also fun because I saw the 2nd graders I subbed for yesterday, as well as the other 2 (English) first grades who all knew me, and the 2 English kindergarten classes who knew me and were excited to see me. I heard lots of exclamations of my name as I went through the halls today. I hadn't realized I'd gotten famous here too! :)

Lunchtime is Joke Time

Got called really late today - around 10.

I arrived at the school to find that the class was at PE, and when I went to pick them up I found out they had no idea their teacher was leaving. But they were really good, and it was actually a pretty fun day. We told jokes at lunch. They worked on unfinished work and read and went to the computer lab. I finished my book. And, I only worked 5 or so hours but I'll get paid for a full day! All in all, a pretty good day.

Some of the kids even remembered me from last year! I subbed in a second grade at this school last year for a half day - way back on October 16, 2008. They even remembered that I read them a dinosaur book that day! I never cease to be amazed at the random things kids will remember!

(Oh, and blog readers - go back to yesterday's post and read the end - I just remembered to add an important story that I'd forgotten yesterday!)

From Sleep to Ready in 10 Minutes!

So I was being pretty lazy and kinda dumb this morning by not getting out of bed because I hadn't gotten called yet. Actually, I did get called at 5:30 for a job a didn't want - which I turned down - and then I was just dozing in bed. Then, my phone rings at 8 for a job that starts at 8:15! It's at one of my favorite schools though, in a classroom I've been to before and liked, and thankfully, the school is close. So I take it, and then have to leap out of bed, get dressed, tame my hair, brush my teeth, collect my stuff and assemble my lunch and get out the door. I managed all this in 10 minutes. I was impressed with myself.

Anyways, the day went well! I even have a couple funny stories!

One boy asked me this morning if I knew that his sister was his half sister. I told him that no, I did not. He then added, "She wasn't supposed to be my half-sister. But she has a different dad than me." Ummm...too much info!

At another time, after reading a book called Dogzilla, in which the end of the story involves puppies, one boy questioned how there could be puppies since there was no girl dog. I told him that Dogzilla was the girl dog. Then another boys added, "Yeah, ya know, 'cuz if you don't get your dog fixed then it'll have puppies." To which the rest of the class nodded in confirmation. Bet you didn't know those puppies will just appear if you don't fix your dog! :)

The rest of the day was pretty typical - although the afternoon was a bit crazy. We went to watch the Battle of the Books finale, and then the class had PE and music. After that we were supposed to come back to the room and get ready to go home. However, about 3 minutes before I sent them on their way someone from the office came to the room to tell me not to let the kids leave because they were going to bring a note soon that needed to go home today. We waited around for about 10 minutes after dismissal time for the notes to come, and then we didn't get enough. But I was finally told to let them go anyway. Thankfully, I actually like the kids, otherwise that would be torture (keeping then an unexpected extra 10 minutes!) :)

You've GOT to be Kidding Me!

So this week has pretty much stunk.

Granted, yesterday was pleasant, but Tuesday was not an enjoyable class, Wednesday was the "we don't actually want you" debacle, and today, oh today - it happened again.

Is it a full moon this week?!? (Oh, just checked - no it's not. I must search for another explanation.)

Anyways. It's about 12:30 and I've given up on a job for today and am talking on the phone with my mom when I get another call. It's the sub office calling for a job starting at 12:01. So I'm irritated and running around like crazy to get out the door. I arrive at the school, and this is just not my week because, once again, they look at me a shock and say, "Oops, sorry, we don't need you."

Yeah.

Again.

I know.

Apparently the job was SUPPOSED to go to another sub that was already in the building, and she was already doing the job. So they said sorry a couple more times, went back to their work and waited for me to just leave.

What am I supposed to do?

I wanted to say, "Well, find me something to do, because I'm here and you have to pay me." But I also didn't want to make everyone angry with me and get bad rep. So I acted frustrated and I left.

Then I went home.

And called the sub office.

And tattled.

Well, not tattled really. You see, tattling is telling on someone when you want them to get in trouble, and telling is when you tell on someone to keep them and everyone else safe. (At least that's the best way I've heard to explain it to kids.) And while there might be a tiny bit of me that wants to get them in trouble, mostly I just want this to quit happening! The people putting in job requests need to learn how to do it right. And that would keep them safe from my anger, so yeah, it's just telling. :)

It's Not My Fault!

Really it wasn't.

This afternoon I was sitting in my recliner reading a book, since I had nothing better to do and no place to sub. And then, surprisingly, my phone rings. It's nearly 1:30, so I'm not sure who it is but it can't be the sub office.

But it is.

It's a call for a sub job teaching 4th grade at one of the furthest schools from my house.

Start time?

Noon.

Yeah.

So I'm thinking, "That's weird. Wonder what's going on up there?" while I scramble around getting dressed, brushing my teeth, grabbing my stuff and running out the door. I drive the half-hour to the school and dash into the office. Pretty much as soon as I walk in the door I realize something is not right. Usually when you get one of these abnormal, really late calls, the office is waiting for you to arrive and there's a spark of recognition in their eyes when you walk in the door. This did not happen. In fact, they seemed very curious who I was and why I was there. I explained that I was there to sub and that I'd gotten a late call about a half-hour ago. Then they seemed really puzzled. This set off a series of events: one of the office people called the teacher, the other checked the sub site to make sure I read the date right I guess (I had). Turns out the teacher wanted the sub for Friday and put the date in wrong. However, now that I was there because of their mistake I now have a choice (this is district policy): I can leave and not get paid, or I can stay and do whatever they want me to and get paid for a half-day. They can't tell me to leave, it has to be my decision. Well, obviously, I wanted to get paid. (I did make the 30 minute drive up there! I didn't want it to be for nothing.) However, I got the feeling they were wishing I'd choose to leave so my sub pay wouldn't come out of their school's fund. I didn't want to leave though, I wanted to get paid, so it was a little awkward.

Eventually they sent me to the library to help out there.

The library people liked me.

I shelved books and covered new books with contact paper for a couple hours. They were very happy to have me and kept saying over and over how it was so great I was there, and "thank you so much". So at least someone was happy to have me around! :)

A Late One!

At around 9:15 this morning, just as I was thinking I wouldn't work today, and was getting ready to go run some errands, my phone started ringing. It took me three tries to type in my ID number and PIN (don't really know what the problem was there!) Anyways, it was a job at one of the few schools I haven't been to, in a preschool class. And the start time was 9!

I dashed out of here with my directions in hand and once again feeling a bit frantic. I don't love late calls. Anyways, I arrive to the room to find 4 other adults there. I thought one was the teacher who I was taking over for, but apparently she wasn't. The teacher I guess was never there. One of the other adults kept asking me all day if I wanted to this or that or if I wanted her to do it. I kept trying to tell her I didn't care and she could do it if she wanted, but she still kept asking. The kids were cute, but really hyper. Much of the day felt like corralling wild animals. It reminded me of that episode of the Amazing Race when the contestants had to heard ducks up a ramp. Yeah, it was like that.

Bowling!

Today turned out to be a pretty interesting day after all. I didn't get called this morning until around 7:40 for a job that started at 8. Thankfully it was a school close by and it didn't take me long to get ready. It was also only for the morning, so I didn't need to pack a lunch (or so I thought!).

Anyways, I get to school, walk down to the 5th grade room I was subbing in and find out that the 4th and 5th graders are going on a field trip this morning to Town and Country Lanes in Keizer to go bowling! And by the time we get back it will be lunch time and then time for me to go home! So I wait around doing nothing for about a half hour until the kids got there. Then I passed out name tags that told the kids what lane they were assigned to and what order they went in with the other 3 or 4 kids in their lane. Then I took attendance and we lined up and got on the buses. Twenty minute bus ride later and we are at the bowling alley. The kids all went right to their lanes and started bowling. The PE teacher went around to the lanes and made sure the kids all knew what they were doing. The teachers stood around and watched. There were also a gazillion parents there to watch their kids, so basically I stood around for 2 hours and watched bowling. Easy, but not the most thrilling. The bowling alley turned on the black lights and disco balls for the kids, which was very exciting for them, and made me glow like a stinkin' beacon because I had happened to choose to wear a white jacket that morning!

Anyways, eventually we headed back to school, and after a short game of Mad Libs, I took the class to lunch and supervised them because I had lunch duty. While I was in the lunch room one of the 4th grade teachers came in and said she wasn't feeling well and asked if I wanted to take her class for the afternoon. I agreed, but it did make my lunch time a bit crazy. After duty I had to take the bag of kids' meds back to the office (we had to have them on us for the field trip), then I had to go back downstairs and get my purse and sub bag which were still in the room. Then I went up to the 4th grade room so the teacher could show me a couple things before she left. Then I had to go buy a lunch and eat it in about 5 minutes - not even exaggerating. Thankfully, after I picked the class up from recess the counselor came in to give a lesson so I actually had time to finish my lunch.

The rest of the day consisted of math, read aloud and independent work time. Then we had a birthday party complete with donuts, after which I promptly sent them home! :)

Pouting Master

I met her today. And the performance was quite spectacular!

But let's back up a bit to the beginning of my day. I was sitting around being lazy this morning because I couldn't quite get the energy to actually get ready when I didn't know if I was going anywhere. Unfortunately, this usually backfires on me. You'd think I'd learn, but no, I don't. So I got a call at around 8:15. The job started at 8:15. It's in Keizer and I'm in my pajamas. So I got dressed faster than a superhero and ran out the door. Made it to the school around 8:50. The kids are already there and the principal is leading a reading group while the other kids are reading by themselves or with another group led by an assistant/parent volunteer. The principal was very nice to give me a few minutes to get settled and look over the plans for the day. After that I took over the group.

Shortly into the day I learned that this was a very immature group of 1st and 2nd graders. There was a lots of tattling, whining, pouting, name-calling, and just general belly-aching among them. I found myself often lecturing them on not "acting like babies". It was about 30 minutes into my time with them that the Queen Pouter made her appearance. And that is our story for tonight:

This little girl came up to me with a book during their silent reading time and asked me if she could read it. I said sure. (I mean, it's a book, what do I care?) But another girl in the room who decided she needed to police everyone turned around, outraged, and exclaimed to me that the first girl could NOT read that book because it was a yellow dot, and that girl can only read the red dot books because the yellow dot is too hard and she can't read them, she needs the easy books. The first girl protested, and the second girl argued back with her. I basically had to yell at them to get their attention again. I clarified that I knew what their problem was and then told the second girl I didn't really care about the dots today and that the first girl could read it if she wanted. (This was an unpopular judgement for girl 2 who was pretty sure I'd just destroyed the world by not following the system.) However, the first girl was so mad at the butting-in girl that she was pouting. I mean, full arms-crossed, bottom lip-out pouting. I tried to give her the book, but she just scowled. So I said, "Ok, nevermind then" and threw the book on my desk. This activated the "turbo pout" and my little pouter ran over to the corner of the room, knelt down, then bent over herself, started rocking and sobbing and huffing about. It was ridiculous. I just left her there. Then, upon noticing my lack of attention, she got up and walked over the the door near the desk where I was sitting. She crossed her arms again, (bottom lip out) and faced the door. I still ignored her. She started softly banging her head on the door. I ignored her. She kept banging her head and started huffing/growling again. At this point I told her, "If you'd like to come talk to me like a big kid and not a baby about your problem, I'll be happy to listen to you anytime." She begrudgingly came over and told me that she COULD read that book, and that the red books were too easy for her. So I pulled it off the desk and told her I was going to give it to her earlier but she was too busy pouting. I then opened and asked her to read a page to me. And yes, she COULD read it! In fact, she read it very well. There were some hard words in it and she sounded them out perfectly. I told her she needed to talk to her teacher about the red books being too easy. I gave her the book and told her that if anyone tried to tell her she couldn't be reading that book to tell them to ask me, and not to argue with them herself. She went off to read and that was the last of the pouting for the day! Yay!

Not to say that the tattling, whining, name-calling or belly-ached stopped, but hey - one problem at a time! We still had lots of that, but they got better as the day went on. It was busy, and tiring, but not as terrible as I feared after that first hour or so.

I Just Need to Make a Call

Was starting to think I was going to have the day off today when I got called at around 8. The start time was 8:30 and it takes me about 30 minutes to get to the school! So I got ready fast. Thankfully, I got lucky with the lights and made it there early!

The class was 2nd grade, and they were SOOOO much better than yesterday. Very busy, but sweet.

About a hour into the day one girl comes up to me and asks if she can make a call. I ask her why and she says she need to call her dad. I ask her why again and she says something about needing to tell him when she goes to recess. Again, I ask, why? She explains that if he calls when they're at recess then she won't be here and he might be worried. I told her that if her dad needed to talk to her, the office would take a message. She said he might be worried because he wouldn't know where she was. I assured her that the office would tell him, and he'd know she was at school, so she was fine. This did not satisfy her, I could tell, but she also realized that I was not going to change my mind, so she let it go.

I was afraid she was going to be mad at me the rest of the day and be a little stinker, but she wasn't. In fact, at the end of the day she asked me if I'd be here tomorrow and when I told her no, she said, "Awww....I wish you were! I wanted to spend some more time with you!" Kids are funny. :)

No More Hating

Today was a lesson in flexibility for me.  I got a call at around 9 for a job with a start time of 9.  So I had to race around to get ready and leave.  And it never fails that when you are in a hurry you drop things and forget things and generally annoy yourself by being slow.

So I got there as quickly as I could to find the class already started.  The teacher isn't there anymore, but the school counselor is filling in while they waited for the sub.  The kids were doing stations, so that helped to have them already busy.  We spend the next 30 minutes (me, the counselor and the classroom assistant) trying to figure out what the teacher's plan was for the day.  She'd left in a hurry and had left virtually no plans.  We eventually figured out something to do for the day.

The class was really pretty good. However, come the afternoon they were fighting with each other a lot.  I found a note that one kid had written saying "I Hate so-and-so".  So we had a long discussion about respect, politeness, treating each other they way we'd want to be treated, and how hating is a bad thing to feel.  As I was in the middle of my "hating only makes everything worse" speech, one of the boys raised his hand and chimed in, "Well it's like in God's eyes we're all brothers and sisters and so we should be nice to each others."  However, soon after, another child contributed, "Well, some people believe we evolved from Orangutans and I believe that too, and maybe the Orangutans got alone but when we evolved to humans people started fighting."  She had quite the well thought-out story with dialog and everything! Yeah.  Then we had to end the discussion.

Oh, and the picture above is one drawn for me by one of the kids (named blurred out) - notice his spelling. :)

UFOs, Superheros, and Bees

While I was talking via Skype with my brother this afternoon I got a call for an afternoon job.  Good for the paycheck, but bad timing!  I had like 3 minutes to get ready and leave which really just is not fun.  I can do it, but really, why would I want to?

So I tootled off to sub for some 3rd graders.  It was a pretty light lesson plan - the whole afternoon consisted of reading and writing for the kiddos.  They had to write for a long time!  The first hour they were writing stories about a UFO landing at their school.  Then we had silent reading (which was not silent at all, but it was hard for me to quite them down while still doing battle with my half-voice.)  Then they were supposed to spend the next half-hour writing about some superheroes they were creating.  Some were eager to work on this but most were all "wrote-out" so I gave them a word search the teacher had left in case we needed it.  They liked doing this and it kept things relatively calm until the end of the day and clean up time.

As for the bee: when I got home I was out watering my plants and a bee flew into the apartment!  It was absolutely gigantic and I was pretty much terrified of it.  I'm sure my antics would have made for a great sitcom bit.  I was trying to coax it out of the window and out the door by throwing an empty hot pocket box at the window blinds from about 6 feet away.  But that blasted bee would NOT come out of the window!  I ended up going outside to scope out what the bee was doing from a safer vantage point and then my neighbor came outside!  I told him my trial, and he kinda laughed at me, but then came into the apartment and pretty much just picked that dang bee up on a piece of paper and tossed him outside.  So I felt like a moron, but at least it was gone!