I Gotta Get With It

I think this is the first time I've actually forgotten to write a blog. I did sub on Monday. I'm writing this on Tuesday. But I'm going to date is as if I did write it on Monday.

And because I've forgotten until tonight to write something I'm having a really hard time thinking of something to tell about my day. It was pretty uneventful judging from my lack of memories of it. I subbed in a second grade class. They were a small group - only 16 kids. For the most part they were okay although they were really slow to follow directions. It usually took about 5 minutes for the group as a whole to move from one activity to sitting at the carpet, which was pretty frustrating. I was told one boy was the difficult one of the bunch, but I actually had less problems with him than I did with a girl in the class that was not mentioned as being a behavior problem. Funny how kids can sometimes act so differently than they normally do with a substitute. Some improve, perhaps simply because I'm a new face and they don't know what to expect. And some are worse because they decide they should try to get away with everything that their teacher doesn't let them do.

I'm Wearing Lots of Green

That what one girl told me today.  I didn't think I was wearing that much.  My shirt was green.  My skirt had some green in it...but is also had some black and it was mostly white.  My shoes were black.  I thought I just matched.  Apparently it seemed that I was wearing lots of green.

My day was fine.  I don't have much to write about mostly because I can't remember anything terribly amusing to tell and I'm sort of in a cranky mood at the moment (which has nothing to do with the students today - it's basically inexplicable).  

I didn't have a lot of down time today because during my prep time I had to cut a bunch of tissue paper squares for the teacher and during the kids' lunch time I had to supervise them.  Guess I'm just tired.  Normally at this school you get a nice long lunch because they have assistants doing cafeteria and lunch duty.  But today we couldn't use the cafeteria because of an special presentation that was going on in there for the upper grades.  We had to pick up sack lunches for the hot lunch kids and eat in our rooms.  Lots of schools do this every day because they don't have a cafeteria, but I've gotten used to not doing it at this school so it felt odd.

So other than the odd comment on my outfit and the lunch alternative it was fairly typical.

Off to Neverland!

Super easy day for me!

So I got this morning job for today at around 4:30 yesterday.  It was at my new number-one favorite school in a fifth grade class.  This morning I arrived and was surprised to see how very little I was going to do today!  

I had the kids for about 10 minutes in the morning.  During this time they were working on some "Daily Geography" questions.  I had to write those on the board.  There were three of them.  I also had to write the morning schedule on the board.  A ton of work, I know! :)

After that I took them to music.  After music they had PE.  When we returned from PE they got their snacks out and I started up the movie Peter Pan (the newer live-action version).  Apparently they'd been reading some version of Peter Pan in their class so today they were going to get to watch the movie.  This movie is about 2 hours long and that took us right up to lunch time!  I deposited them in the cafeteria and was on my way.

I think I'm getting spoiled.

Full to Half AGAIN!

Last week I took a job online for today at one of the schools on the other end of town.  There were actually two jobs that I saw for the same school - one was first and the other third.  I took the third grade job.  

So today I arrived bright and early (start time is at 8), and met the student teacher.  She lead me to the room where I then met the teacher.  While the teacher was explaining to both me and the student teacher what the schedule was going to look like she kept saying "it's going to be a pretty easy morning for you."  So I finally asked, "Are you coming back for the afternoon?"  She said she was.  I was surprised because the job I took online listed as a full day job.  But the teacher told me I was supposed to go to a first grade class for the afternoon but she didn't know which one.  I was surprised no one in the office has mentioned this when I first checked in.  So I went back to the office and asked and the secretary told me that I didn't go to a different class in the afternoon unless I had signed up for another job on the site.  I then pointed out that the job I had signed up for was listed as a full day.  She apologized a lot but told me there had been a mistake and it was supposed to just be a half day.  Bummer.

The class was pretty good.  I didn't have them for long.  The student teacher did one morning activity.  Then I did calendar and then was went to watch a presentation about trees for an hour.  The kids did a fabulous job listening during this!  After the presentation we went back to the room and they worked on a writing project.  By this time they were getting a little wound up, but it wasn't too bad.  The student teacher read a story to them and then they had lunch.  When we got back to the room after delivering the class to the cafeteria the teacher came back and I left.  I'm getting really tired of all these adjustments to my schedule after I arrive!

Fifth Grade Friday

Shock of all shocks - I got called for a job today. And I'd already had 1.5 days this week! It was an afternoon in a fifth grade. The kids were pretty chatty but okay. They did pretty good during work times at actually working and staying mostly under control. It was the transitions that they were horrible at. They just took forever and couldn't stop talking. But that's survivable. A little annoying, but survivable.

At the end of the day I had a different group of kiddos for ELD (English Language Development). The teacher had told me that they were an energetic group. So right off the bat I told them that if they were good listeners and we could get through the lesson quickly, then we would play a game at the end of the day. This worked fabulously, and they got about 8 minutes to play "Four Corners" - a game where one kids closes their eyes while the others go to one of the four "corners" of the room. Each corner has a number. Then the kids with their eyes closed calls out a number and all the kids in that corner are out. Then everybody moves around to a new corner and the kid picks again. You keep doing that until only one kid is left and they get to be the next guesser. They had fun and it made the end of my day easier. :)

Oh, and Rhonda - a "pull-out" is a term lots of the schools use to refer to music, pe, library, counselor, etc. - anything where the kids are taught by a different teacher and the classroom teacher has prep. In essence, the times when the kids are "pulled out" of the classroom. Although this isn't entirely accurate because most people use this term for counselor visits as well even though usually the counselor comes to the classroom not the other way around. Sorry for not explaining! You don't realize how much lingo you're using when you're around educators ALL THE TIME! haha

Full to Half

Got a call this morning at around 6:30.  I had to listen to the job description about 3 times because I couldn't understand the special instructions.  This lovely computer voice reads it to you and it doesn't always pronounce things the right way!  I ended up having to get on the website to see that it was trying to tell me that I was teaching LRC at one school in the morning and then travelling to a different school to teach LRC in the afternoon.  

I got to the school and got sent to the room.  I sat in there for about 5 minutes waiting for one of the assistants or other teachers to show up to tell me what to do since I couldn't see any schedule or plans.  Then the head LRC teacher came in and told me they'd sent me to the wrong room!  So I went upstairs with her and found the lesson plans! Yay!  Shortly after I'd come upstairs though the phone started ringing.  (They had to call twice it took me so long to figure out where the phone was in the maze of a room!)  It was the office calling to say that the teacher I was subbing for didn't need a full-day sub after all so I was only going to be needed for the morning and wouldn't have to go to the second school.  I was disappointed because I wanted to have a full day's pay and also because I like the other school I was supposed to go to and hadn't been there for a while.  But I'm mostly glad that I had a job at all today!  

I ended up teaching 2 groups of kid this morning.  The first group consisted of 2 boys, and the second group had 4 boys.  They were all working on reading.  After I was done with the groups I had nearly an hour before I was officially "off the clock".  So I asked the head teacher if she had anything I could do for her and she had me make posters of some poems she'd printed out.  Basically I just wrote the poems on big chart paper in colorful markers. 

So it was another easy day for me!  I have an inkling of a possible job for the afternoon tomorrow... so we'll see!

Crazy Hair Day

I almost forgot to write a blog entry today!  I did work.  It was supposed to be just a morning job in one of my frequented kindergarten classes.  But after I'd been there an hour or so the secretary came in and asked if I could stay all day.  So of course I did, but I was mentally kicking myself for not bringing a lunch with me just in case.  I ended up having to eat cafeteria food, which is not horrible, but I wish I'd been smart and brought food I'd already paid for instead of having to buy more.

I hardly had to do anything today.  I spent the morning pulling kids over to read to me while I took running records - a skill that I learned years ago at Corban and has apparently been embedded in my brain because I mostly remember how to do it.  The assistant taught most of the content of the day.  I think I had the kids by myself for about 25 minutes.  In that time I supervised silent reading, took them on a bathroom break, and did a quick write activity.  In the afternoon the kids had an hour of pull outs, and a short time in the classroom.  Again, the assistant took care of that.  I spent the time coloring.  Seriously, I did.  The assistant had this sample book she wanted to laminate, but it needed to be colored in first so she asked me if I'd do it.  So that was fun and incredibly easy.  At the end of the day the assistant said something about how she hoped I didn't feel like she didn't think I was capable of doing the stuff, that it was just easier for her to do it than explain it.  I said that I didn't mind in the least, and that I was happy to do whatever worked best for them.  (And in my head I thought that the district's going to pay me the exact same amount whether I'm up front with the class or sitting in the back coloring!)

To add to the madness of the day, in an effort to prevent jokes and pranks on April Fool's Day, the school had declared today "Crazy Hair Day" and everyone was encouraged to do something weird to their hair.  I saw quite a few wigs, and ponytails in large quantities or in odd places on heads, as well as an array of differently colored locks.  Tons of kids had obviously invested in spray-on hair color.  I put my hair in a ponytail on the left side of my head and clipped my bangs to the right.  Then I put silver curling ribbon in it.  I take advantage of all opportunities to make a fool of myself! :)