Don't Forget to Look Behind You

Today was pretty good. The kids were busy, often loud, sometimes rowdy, but I was still able to corral them. "He/She started it" boy only uttered his phrase of choice twice today (within about 5 minutes of each other), and I'm happy to report I didn't hear him say it again! "I'm hot" boy only referenced his lovely-ness once! He did however, bring cupcakes for his birthday and nagged me all morning, asking, "Can we have the cupcakes now?!"

At the end of the day today we had "Fun Friday". I was in charge of the Capture the Flag game. Which basically meant I handed out red and yellow "flags" for the kids to wear to identify teams, and I stood outside and watched them....and I blew the whistle a few times. The best part of the day though was watching the yellow team win capture the flag! One kid from their team got over and grabbed the red team's flag (in this case, a cone) and got it to within about 3 feet of the boundary line before getting tagged out. Then the red team gathered around the cone to protect it from the too-near yellow team. However, when they were all gathered at one end and not paying attention, one clever-thinking boy from the yellow team crossed over the line at the other end and casually walked a wide loop around them until he was standing behind the whole red team, and just a few feet away from the cone. His team soon figured out what was going on and a bunch of them ran forward, spurring the red team into action and leaving a wide opening for the boy in the back to step forward, grab the cone and run the few strides over to his side, winning the game. Well done, yellow team, well done.

He/She Started It!

I do not want to hear this phrase again!

Although I'm afraid I probably will tomorrow, because it seemed to be one boy's excuse of choice and I'm going back to the same class tomorrow.

I'm not kidding you, EVERY TIME I went over to his table to see how they were doing, one kid would complain about him doing something and he would defend himself with "He (or She) started it!!" Despite how many times I told him I did not care, despite the fact that I moved him to a new seat, he still fell back on the blame others technique. It was very annoying.

Another boy in the class thought he was all that and frequently I heard him proclaiming that he was "cute" and "hot". I was disturbed. What person has encouraged these proclamations? Because clearly he is developing a big head. He also thought it was funny to be a smart alec ALL THE TIME! I eventually had to tell him to knock it off and get over himself. Doubt that's going to last til tomorrow either....,

Anyway, the rest of the class was pretty good minus a couple screwballs. It is the end of May after all. Hopefully I will survive tomorrow as well.

Birds are Shaped Like Eggs

I dad an afternoon job today.

During the few hours I was there, I handed out a math worksheet, took them to music/PE, and went through files while they were gone. When they came back I read a couple books, then taught them how to draw birds. We talked about the shapes we saw (their bodies are egg-shaped, the heads are circles, and the beak and tail are triangles) and then we drew finches. Their pictures were all really cute - I wish I'd taken a picture of them before I left!

Mad Libs Bailout

Today was smoother, despite not really having a lesson plan. I had to base the plan off of yesterday's, and continue where we left off then.

One group didn't come in the morning, and I spent part of my afternoon doing projects for the 2nd grade teachers. One of the projects involved me copying 40 some pages (front and back) of a math packet. Thankfully, the school has a nice new copier that pretty much did it all for me! :) While I was standing there watching the copier do its magic, I overheard a girl on the phone in the office with her mom. She was begging her mom to hurry up and get there because she didn't want to have to be some kid's partner at the after-school program, because he was her "natural enemy!"

In other news, my difficult student from yesterday was better today. I brought some Mad Libs with me and I had him do those instead of attempting to force him to continue writing a story he really didn't want to. It was a much more pleasant end to the day.

Tired

I am.

Which is odd since it's Monday and I should be fresh, and I subbed in LRC (Learning Resource Center) which meant I only had up to 4 kids at a time.

And yet, they wear you out.

I did many forms of reading, writing, spelling, and math activities today with groups of 1-4 kids. Each group met with me for a half-hour and I pretty much had them back-to-back today. I had a 30 minute lunch, one 30 minute period in a classroom, and one 30 minute break. The rest was groups, groups, groups!

Some groups were easy, some were challenging, some just didn't want to be there. But I survived and am going back for another stab at it tomorrow. :)

Memories

Today I returned to the same class from Tuesday...and Monday....and last Friday. The kids were better today than they were the last time I was with them, and I was glad.

It was also a super easy day for me!

We had reading and math in the morning like normal, and that took us right up to recess time. I supervised a lot of independent work - reading, writing, math worksheet-ing. :)

After their recess and my lunch, the kids had lunch in the room, as normal. This is also when they do sharing. And I read a few more pages of George's Marvelous Medicine.

After their lunch they packed up all their stuff, put chairs up and we went up to their 5th grade buddy room. (From there we were going to music and PE which is closer to the 5th grade room than theirs - and since they get dismissed from PE, they had to bring their stuff.) The kids worked with the buddies, and I walked around. This was a different 5th grade from last week, and I saw even more kids from my student teaching class! I think there were about 6 or 7 of them in this class. I stopped and talked with a few of them. One girl (who I didn't not recognize at first) told me she remembered how we sometimes used to dress opposite. "Well, at least once we did - you were wearing a green shirt and black pants and I was wearing a black shirt and green pants!"

How funny that this is the memory of me that has stuck with her throughout the years. :)

Punishment

My apologies for being so late with this entry! My afternoon and evening were completely taken up by errands, dinner meetings and favorite TV shows.

Today was my third day with the same class. Friday had been find, yesterday was good, but today was a bit more of a struggle. It seemed like the class was punishing me for being there instead of their teacher - who they really want to be back. I don't know why they don't seem at all happy to have me there. I've giving them partner reading time, free time, watched videos with them, etc. All of which seem like fun things that should make them eager to see what else I'll do with them today. However, they just made the day kinda hard. Lots of talking (not listening), attitude problems, whining, and tattling. I was so exasperated with a few of them at the end of the day!

One boy told me he wanted to read alone during partner reading time. I told him that was fine. He chose a spot in the room to sit and read, but proceeded to keep goofing around (playing with pencils, rolling around on the floor, etc.). I kept going over to where he was and standing watch. He was irritated by this. Once he mumbled, "Don't you know what alone means?" To which I responded, "Yes, I know what that means. However, I am your teacher, and my job is to make sure you do what you are supposed to. Right now, you are supposed to be reading. However, every time I come over you are not doing that. So if you'd like me to leave you alone then you need to follow directions and get to work." He kept shooting me irritated glances, but (mostly) read for the rest of the time.

And that is a sample of the battles I fought today.

I also made another boy cry. (Purely unintentional, I assure you!) He got upset over something another girl said to him about how I wasn't going to let him watch the movie, and just couldn't get himself under control. He was sobbing and begging me to let him go home. I told him to take some deep breaths, get a drink of water and just try to calm down a little and he'd be fine. Eventually (after at least 20 minutes) he managed to get himself under control and made it to the end of the day.

Phew. I'm tired just thinking about all of it!

I'm hoping (for my sake, their sake, and their teacher's sake) that she is back tomorrow!