Spillage

Today I returned to another familiar kindergarten.

The kids were super hyper!

So yes, it is spring even if the weather doesn't seem to think so.

We also dealt with lots of spills this morning! The kids have breakfast in the classroom (if they want to) and today it was cereal in those little plastic containers with the pull off paper lids, milk or apple juice and apples. We had about 3 or 4 kids spill their milk - a couple were big spills too. Also had another kid spill their entire apple juice. Then another dumped their cereal all over the floor (before putting milk in it.) It felt like I was spending the first 20 minutes of the day sweeping up cheerios, and mopping up milk. The floor was grossly sticky for the rest of the day.

And that's pretty much all of interest for the day. The rest was just calendar, writing (which was quite the struggle for some of them! I spent a good 5 minutes asking a kid what he saw on his plant only to get a completely blank stare!), counselor, and math.

Is it really only Tuesday? Feels much later....

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. :)

"I'll Write You Up!"

^Words I have never said.

However, today I dealt with one child threatening to do just that to a bunch of other kids in the class. I never really did figure out what she meant by that, because when I told the others that she couldn't write them up - shes's just a kid, the informed me that she could. There's some sort of reporting list somewhere I guess. I had at least 4 kids come up to me and tell me she'd made the threat over something they never did. Little miss "write-you-up" denied ever saying such a thing. I did not buy it (I know these kids pretty well by now and it definitely seems like something she'd do.) There were arguments about it in the morning, dirty looks shot at each other throughout the day, and a big (verbal) fight at recess which culminated in one girl crying and the rest huddling together and shooting furtive glances at me. I had to go get my counselor on and try to help them work it out without them all just exclaiming, "I did NOT!" after everything the other kid said. Eventually we came in from recess - with all of the girls with their grumpy faces on. However, they finally seemed to realize they were first graders, not middle schoolers and 3 minutes later the 2 heads of the opposing parties are walking around the room with their arms around each other and proclaiming to me that, "We worked it out now Miss Barnes!"

Sigh. Equal parts relieved and exasperated! I can tell it's spring!

Just Stop Making That Face

Today went pretty decently. For the most part I was able to keep the kiddos under control, and that's saying something!

Nobody went to the office because they were in trouble (although one child went twice for other reasons (more on that in a minute)).

The morning started oddly when the principal came in with a giant stack of printed papers and asked me if I'd happened to send this to the printer. It had to have been like 300 sheets at least! I told him that I hadn't, and he said it had showed it came from the teacher's account whom I was subbing for. He left them in the room. Still puzzled about that one.

Later in the day one child had to go to the bathroom. Like, really badly. He came up to me with his legs pinched together, ankles crossed, holding himself, hunched over, with this inexplicable look on his face. He had his eyes scrunched up, rolled up in his head, nose pulled to the side, and bottom teeth biting his upper lip in the most bizarre and somewhat disturbing grimace I've ever seen. I asked him to stop making that face and go to the bathroom already!\

Even later, he and I had more drama when his shoelace got so knotted that I couldn't get it undone! After trying a couple times, and convincing him to stop whining about it and start walking I sent him to the office to see if they had any laces they could replace them with. They didn't, but they did try to get the knot undone. They couldn't either. By now the child is back in the room with me, with his shoe half off and making a big ol' fuss about it. Thankfully, the class was working independently for the moment, so I took his shoe off and after about 5 minutes of prying I GOT THE KNOT UNDONE! I was quite thrilled about this. He didn't seem too excited. I believe he was still having the false hope that I was going to let him go home early because of his shoe. Dream on.

Oh, and to continue the drama of said child: during P.E. he ran into another kid and hit his teeth on the other's head (not quite sure how he achieved this - I'm picturing him running with his mouth wide open and front teeth aimed out, haha) The other kid was not injured, but teeth-boy was and apparently also bleeding. He walked past the room on the way to the office sniffling and sobbing. Came back 10 minutes later to get his stuff and go home (that's when I got the whole story.)

So really, not a bad day - kind of a lot of drama, but manageable stuff. Tomorrow I do it again and then get my well-deserved weekend!

Testing My Patience

This is an important blog post!!!

Want to know why?

Because it is number.......300!!

That is a lot of blogging, my friends! (Never mind the 166 posts on the other blog I started at the same time! I am well documented!)

Now I'm wishing I'd started this baby on my first day subbing...now that would have been really interesting.

Anyway, on to today...

Morning was pretty good. The naughty children were mostly compliant and I was thinking that I was finally going to have a mostly-nice day with this class.

Apparently, they were not willing to let that happen.

The naughties stepped up their naughtiness for the afternoon until I was so fed up with them I had to keep reminding myself not to huff in frustration and growl at them.

I was constantly redirecting, having everybody go back to their desks and put their heads down so I could go over the directions again. Multiple times I had them put away fun activities (i.e. math centers, art projects) because they got out of control.

However, there was about half of the class doing a superb job. They listened, were always on task and following directions, and were visibly frustrated with their annoying classmates. Unfortunately, it only takes a couple rotten kids to foul up the whole class. I always feel bad for the good ones, and try my best to praise them over and over. It's frustrating! I was going to give those few a piece of candy at the end of the day, but we ran out of time...thinking I might bring them pencils tomorrow because I'm moving down the hall to naughty class #2!

Dear substitute office - I earned my pay this year, you hear?!

Sunshine and Clouds

I wasn't sure about today.

The class I was going to sub for has at times been pleasant, at times they've been difficult. Today, happily, was a pleasant day.

Despite starting the morning with no plans (the teacher I was subbing for had emailed them to the teacher next door, but they were stuck in a staff meeting all morning, so I didn't get the plans until the kids arrived - thankfully I'd found some old plans and sketched out something before they arrived, so I had an idea of what order things were happening), it all went pretty smoothly.

We had math in the morning, which consisted of a short review, a worksheet and making pop-up Mother's Day cards, followed by music, P.E. and recess for the kids. I picked them up after that to get their lunches and bring them back to the room.

Lunch was eventful because they cart they're supposed to put their trays on after they've dumped was missing! One of the kids from the classroom proclaimed he'd get it and ran off to who-knows-where. Thankfully, he came back a minute later pushing the cart and smiling at himself for being so clever, and looking oh-so-cool pushing that cart down the path.

After lunch we did some reading and writing and finish-up-work time. I made them all very happy by saying 'yes' to the requests to draw on the little white boards. Then I made them even more happy by letting them have an extra recess on our beautiful sunny day! (Basically Miss Barnes really wanted to go outside so she made sure they "earned" an extra recess. Although, they really were good, so it's not like they didn't deserve it.)

We came in from our bonus recess to go to my friend's first grade class (this class's 'buddy room"). My group helped the first graders cut out, staple together and stuff big paper clouds with magazines. I'm not sure what they're doing with them after this, since that's all we got to today - it's got something to do with Earth Day though.

"I Hate Yellow"

This morning I returned to my frequented, quiet, cozy LRC! It was a busier day in the LRC than it normally is, since the aids both left at lunch. (Something to do with the furlough day on Friday? I don't know.) Since they were gone, I had all the afternoon groups by myself. It wasn't a huge number by any extent, but it was more than usual. :)

The most interesting moment was when one boy returned from the office for the last hour of the day. He'd been in to see me during lunch, and had complained of not feeling well. He called his mom, and she wanted him to stay at school. Apparently this has been happening a lot. So I sent him to the office to lie down. When he came back with the secretary he'd been up there for nearly 2 hours! Apparently he'd been there the whole time, and they'd called his mom again and the office gave him a choice of going back to his room, or coming back to the LRC, so he came back to me. He spend about 30 minutes sitting and doing who-knows-what while I worked with a group. Then I tried to help him write a poem that he had due today. Eventually he settled on writing a cinquain and chose the charming topic of how much he hates the color yellow. Oh well, at least he did something. :)