Bubbles and Paper Plates

Today I returned to one of the schools I used to go to all the time but haven't been to much lately. However, I had been to this class before way back in September. Some remembered me after a while. I didn't really remember any of them, but I learned most of their names.

Shortly after they all arrived in the morning and remembered who I was, they started requesting that I read them "that pig book" that I read last time I was there. Took me a minute to figure out what book they were talking about since they didn't actually remember it was pigs at first. Unfortunately, I didn't have it with me today. We ended up reading The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig instead which they liked (and which is now overdue at the library!).

In the afternoon we went outside to blow bubbles. Apparently it was "bubble day" in the classroom, or so they kept telling me. The teacher had it marked on the schedule to do that for 45 minutes, but they seemed bored after 20 and I was tired of supervising and keeping them out of the way of the older kids at recess and then keeping them away from the classroom windows, so we went in and I read stories.

The kids had PE and music today so my afternoon was really short and I had a huge prep period at the end of the day - I didn't even have to go back and get them because they got dismissed from PE. No relaxing for me though! I help the sub next door do a project the 1st grade team had left for her - glue 2 paper plates rim to rim with bottoms facing out, then glue 3 of these sets together to make a little tower. First she ran the glue gun and I put the plates together, then we switched. By the time we were done we'd made 65 plate stacks, and our hands were cramping from the glue gun!

I'm Back, Kids!

This morning I subbed again in the same class I did on Friday. I bunch of kids were gone at the start of the day, but unfortunately, the rest tried to pick up the slack. They were pretty chatty.

We finished off with some last Princess and the Pea activities, then did a compound word game, which I thought would be really fun for them (it's usually the kind of activity that first graders love), but they just seemed bored with it. However, the morning went by really fast and then I was done!

I Never Cease to Be Amazed

AH I'm behind!

This was supposed to be done already, but now it's Tuesday and I'm trying to remember what I was going to write about for Friday.

Ok, so we did a lot of stuff about The Princess and the Pea today. We read 3 books (one traditional, two silly), did a sequencing/writing activity, and made a chart comparing the 3 books. They did really well with the comparing, and we had a pretty impressive chart when we were done. We also did some math, which was kind of tough for some of them. However, the instructional coach came around right about that time and she helped some of them as well.

Surprising but not moment of the day was when it was time to fill out one kid's behavior card at the end of the day. He either gets "wonderful", "ok" or "not good" ratings for morning and afternoon. Well, all day he'd been pretty much a pill (not following directions, not doing work, interrupting, bugging others, whining, arguing with me, hiding when time to line up from recess, etc.) So when I went to talk to him about his card before they went home he asked me if he'd gotten an "ok" - like he was really sure that's what he would get. I had to explain to him why he did not get an "ok" and he was not too happy with me. Thankfully, then he went home. :)

Oh Rats!

I could have worked today.

But somehow, my phone got bumped to silent mode and therefore I didn't hear the call when it came in at 6:00 am. By the time I noticed, it was too late and I didn't get another.

Kind of mad at myself for that.

Tonight, I am happy to have a job in advance for tomorrow.

Appreciate Me!

It's that day again - Substitute Appreciation Day (where subs get recognized as much as any day (not a lot) and really almost forgotten because it's Teacher Appreciation WEEK and well, people remember that.) Haha, I sound bitter - really I'm not - it's just that the whole practice seems a little ridiculous to me. Hardly anyone in the district remembers it's Sub Appreciation Day anyway (one person remarked on it to me today) and they're the people that already make you feel appreciated everyday you come in anyway.

Today I spend my hours in the library - something I'll likely not be doing next year as the district is cutting all library positions except for high school. I checked-in bunches of books, then shelved them, then straightened shelf after shelf after shelf.

I also supervised one class while they worked on computers, read another class a story, and showed a third class a video on DVD and an interactive video/activity online. And then I helped them all find books they wanted to check out. I love the library, but my eyes were bugging out of my head a little after all the Dewey-decimal reading!

Triangles and Elephants

Today was another nice day hangin' in my friend's bilingual 1st grade class. Despite my lack of bilingual-ness, I still enjoyed myself.

The IA did a couple activities that needed to be in Spanish in the morning and the rest of the day just went swimmingly in English. We did some reading and writing activities in the morning and art and math in the afternoon.

Most noteworthy activities of the day:

- We went on a triangle hunt around the school. All the kids carried clipboards with paper and a pencil as we walked down the halls and around the playground looking for things shaped like triangles. The kindergarten class I sub for a lot happened to be out at recess at this time, so that was interesting as a bunch of them wanted to come talk to me. :)

- After reading a book about an elephant, I taught the kids how to draw and elephant. We looked for shapes in the elephant (like circle for his body, egg for his head, triangle for his ear) and drew them all together. Pretty soon they all had really cute, really different elephants that they were SO proud of! Seriously, almost all of them were holding theirs up and calling, "Look at mine, teacher!" It was fun.

Texting and the Wrong Way

This afternoon I worked (for a short period of time) in a second grade classroom. Seriously, it was pretty short. I got there at noon and the kids went to recess. I picked them up thirty minutes later. Then I helped them with math and read a Weekly Reader with them which took a little over an hour. Next the class split up and went to a bunch of different places for a reading time. I ended up having a group of 6. When this was over I took my original class to PE. From there they went to music where I picked them up 5 minutes before dismissal. I had to sort out a bunch of papers and file them during the prep times.

Best moment of the day: The Weekly Reader was about different ways insect communicate. We were discussing the different ways humans can communicate (signing, acting things out, body language, facial expressions, etc.) I was calling on kids to offer up other ideas when one came up with "texting!" A parent had happened into the room just before this to drop off some stuff for the teacher and she and I shared our own non-verbal communication of amusement from across the room. :)

Most embarrassing moment of the day: I went to pick up the class from music and started walking across the school to get there. I passed another teacher in the hall and shortly after realized I was actually going the wrong way! So I turned around to go to the right place. Well, the teacher I passed noticed and turned around to ask me if I was looking for him. I said, no, that I'd just forgotten where I was going. So I start walking to the Music room, but for some idiotic reason I go to the gym (which is close to the music room, but still). I poke my head in and think "This isn't my class..." Then I realize that I dropped them off at PE, but I'm supposed to pick them up at music! So I turn around and who's behind me? You guessed it! Teacher-man! He then asks me if he can help me find something and I say no, that I'm just having a moment, and came to the gym instead of the music room like I was supposed to. I did finally find the class and make it back to the room in one piece without running into teacher-man again!