There Really WAS No More Hiding!

Yay!

I was very happy to pick them up from recess both times to find them all in line and ready to go!

Not all parts of the day went so smoothly, but you gotta look for the positive!

The potentially problematic child was once again wonderful! I'd like to think it was because of my great teaching skill that he decided to be a well-behaved student, but perhaps I just happen to have good timing. :) Although it IS good to think that he was so good despite the surprise of sub which can sometimes set the more volatile kids off - change throws some for a loop. But then again I know about Transformers and Star Wars so how could he not love me?

Another kid did give me a run for my money though. He couldn't sit still, didn't listen and basically was disruptive and rude. I finally got tired of redirecting him over and over and sent him to the office (which is something I hardly EVER do - I feel like if I can deal with them in the room then I will. I don't want to be the sub that's sending a stream of kids to the office. Not a good way to get called back.) He was gone for a while, the rest of the class settled down a bit when the distraction was gone and we got rolling on the afternoon. When the disruptor was back, he had a much better attitude and was pretty pleasant for the rest of the day. Guess he just needed a break too.

No More Hiding

This morning I got my first 5:30 AM call. Yay.

Well, I am glad for the job today, I just really didn't need to know about it for another hour - I was still sleeping phone-calling-machine!

This job is for one of the 15 or so teachers I emailed a couple weeks ago to say that I was still subbing. Guess it's paying off already!

The class was fine. A few sweet ones, a few squirmy ones, a few talkative, and few with "selective hearing", etc. In other words, pretty typical. I was briefed on one child in the morning due to reoccurring behavior problems, but I had no problems with him! In fact, I think I blew his mind when he showed me his pattern block picture of some sort of figure and I asked him if it was a person. He told me that it was a Transformer and I said, "Is it Optimus Prime?" His little mouth dropped open and he looked at me in awe and said, "You've seen that movie?"

The biggest problem of the day actually was a few of the kids (mostly girls) who kept "hiding" from me - I use quotes because they were exceptionally bad at it (I'm not complaining about that), but it was annoying! They were supposed to be in line and for some reason they thought it was funny to hid behind a pillar or around the corner of the building. After first recess I had a talk with the whole class about why it was not OK to hide from me, and the little buggers did it again during second recess! I was pretty steamed.

Hmmm...last thing of interest: we had a fire drill! Their first fire drill of the year! Thankfully, we were warned, and they sent another adult up to my room to help just in case.

Tomorrow I was supposed to go to another class in the same school, but today's teacher is still going be out sick, so they switched me. So I've got one more day with these guys. Hopefully they quit hiding. I think I will threaten to not let them participate in choosing time if they do it again tomorrow.

My First, Their Second

Day of school that is!

So today is the second day of school for students in Salem-Keizer, and I was lucky enough to have a full-day sub job. It was for a teacher I know who had the misfortune to get summoned for jury duty. It was for a pretty long and intense case that would have lasted 12 weeks, so she was very glad to get dismissed after a few hours waiting.

My day was pretty simple. The class is a bilingual class, so the IA did a lot of the morning instruction that was supposed to be in Spanish. I helped out with what I could, and found that most of the kids spoke pretty good English, so I was able to communicate with them well.

I was on my own with them during lunch time, and I spend quite a bit of this time opening milk cartons and ketchup packets, cleaning up spilled milk, and fishing forks and spoons out of the garbage can.

In the afternoon I read a story their teacher had left, and did a "game" where we basically decided if various items could be recycled or had to go in the trash.

After that we took them out to an extra recess, and from there to Music. (Also got mildly scolded by another teacher for bringing the kids into the building before the previous music class had left (despite the fact that we were right on time and the music teacher was running late). Apparently I am not the first to be scolded by this person though, so I pretty much just tried to avoid rolling my eyes at the situation.)

Right as the IA and I were heading back into the main building, the classroom teacher got back from the jury duty. She did the last 30 minutes of the day and I got to play assistant.

It was a nice way to start the year! The kids were very sweet and it was sure easy for me. I'm looking forward to receiving a September paycheck! :)

3...2...1...Blastoff!

Well, it official - I am done with Super Saturdays for the summer! The last session was one of my favorites - rockets! It was also one of the most highly-anticipated sessions (seemed like every week some kid asked me when the "rocket week" was). I think we lived up their expectations.

We started today's class at the Foundation, as usual. We spent about 40 minutes building rockets. Each kid made 2 to 5 versions. Then we walked the block over to Riverfront Park. They have a nice big lawn area there were we set up the rocket launcher and rolled out a 100 ft. tape measure. After that I pretty much held the launcher at the angle the kids wanted to try, and blew up the 2-liter bottle over and over and over again! I was a little winded after an hour of this activity!

In case you don't know what I'm talking about now, I suppose I should describe the launcher in a little more detail. Basically it's a PVC pipe with a bicycle inner tube attached to one end. The other end of the inner tube is attached around the neck of an empty 2-liter pop bottle. The kids put their rocket on the free end of the pipe, and then stomp down on the 2-liter bottle. The air gets pushed out of the bottle, up the inner tube and pipe and propels their rocket into the air. Some of the rockets traveled over 130 ft across the lawn!

It was pretty simple for me (I was grateful to have the help of two assistants - shout out to my mom and Dani - as well as the parent of one of the students who stuck around and impressed (and challenged) the kids with his far-flying rocket!) The weather was nice, the kids had fun. No one got hit in the eye. Good week, good summer. I'm glad to be finished, but wouldn't mind doing it again if the opportunity arises.

Stayed tuned in September for my return to the world of subbing!

Cleared For Takeoff

Forgot my helmet, but thankfully paper and Styrene airplanes do not cause to much trauma to one's head. :)

Today was airplane day!

We started the session with paper airplanes. The original plan was just for the Styrene kind, but since we were a little limited with that material (just enough for each kid to make one), and since I didn't think that would occupy them for 2 hours, we added paper airplanes to the mix. I found a great website (www.funpaperairplanes.com) that had bunches of paper airplane designs (complete with templates!). I chose two designs for us to do, then printed the directions for each plane for each table, and one template for each student. I printed one set on green paper and the other on some salmon/orange colored paper. That way they knew which directions went with which template.

After about twenty minutes of that, we started the main project. I took a little time to talk about lift and such (great kid-friendly explanation found at the same website as the paper airplane templates), and then we did the build phase step-by-step. For most of the other sessions I've let them experiment with their designs more from the start, but since we only had so much Styrene (and since I knew some of the kids from previous weeks and I knew they would need all the steps explained), I went over the basic assembly a little bit at a time. Once they'd all built their first plane, they had the rest of time to tweak it, add things, or make other designs with Styrofoam plates.

A few even thought really outside the box and made "not-planes" out of the plates. There were a few "flying saucers", a few hats (really, when you cut the rim off a plate what else are you supposed to do with it than put in on your head?), and even a sailboat! That kid should have been here a few weeks ago! :)

Another interesting happening today: when I was putting supplies away and doing a final clean-up of the room, a man came in. He was the parent of a kid that was signed up for today's class, but didn't come. He said they'd forgotten about it until it was too late, but he wanted to know if he could have some material for them to do the project at home. Thankfully, I had some extras, so I handed him a Styrene tray, some paper clips and the directions and templates for the paper airplanes. He seemed grateful and I got rid of some stuff! :)

Next week is the last Super Saturday, and while it's been fun, I'll be glad to be done! Hopefully it's not 95 degrees out next weekend because the plan is to make rockets and walk the 2 blocks to Riverfront Park to test them. Should be a fun finale.

It's a Whole New Board Game!

Well today was an interesting session. To start off we had one boy show up, then have his mom come pick him up 5 minutes later - before we even started the activity! Strange.

The majority of the kids seemed to be happy making a board game for the two hours. We talked about things to consider when designing their game, such as how to incorporate the element of chance, if the game has a theme, how you win, etc. Most had lots of ideas and happily worked away making their games they way they imagined them.

Most.

However, there were a few kids who did not seem at all interested in our activity for the day. It seems that perhaps it was their parents' idea and not theirs to take the class in the first place. About 3 of my older boys spent a good part of their time just sitting there and drawing stick people on paper. Oh well, I suppose you can't win them all.

Thankfully, the kids who did participate seemed to have fun, and were very eager to tell me ALL the details about their game.

Next week is Styrene Airplanes. I imagine a constant stream of flying objects is in my near future!

Inservice Insanity

It's August and that means it's time for substitute inservice!

Much as always, it was long, it was sort of boring, and half of the risk management presentation didn't apply to substitutes at all.

Our table had a lot of laughs at the ridiculousness of it.

One good thing that came out of it was that subs finally have our own user names and passwords to log-in to district computers!

Oh, and I'm planning on writing a sitcom. I think a show about a substitute teacher following all the rules and procedures to the letter would be quite hilarious. For example, you are apparently encouraged to report all injuries you receive on the job - including paper cuts. Also, I guess it's my responsibility to remove a paper cutter that is missing its finger guard. The ridiculousness of it is just made for television comedy! :)