Preschool in near-city district at a different school than the other times. Tho other school had two near-identical classrooms- the teachers are truly a team there- and the students were English-speaking. You know where I’m going with this one… I arrived, and the principal was acting as secretary and signed me in. Headed to the classroom and what is the first thing I see? Everything in Spanish. The one school got the English-speaking kids, this one got the Spanish-speaking ones. Most did know a little English, and unlike another class I was in in another district, let’s just call it one-school district for the number of schools I was usually called to sub in toward the end of last year which is tied to the reason I didn’t re-sign up with them this year, this time I had an assistant working with me who could speak Spanish, so I didn’t have too much of a problem. The morning and afternoon were similar in schedule to the other school. I think they run off the same schedule as pre-k is a special progam in the district. They had some start-of-day work, calendar time, centers (which included a lot of play centers), song time, wrap-up, and take them outside to the playground to wait for buses. The morning was actually a little different than the afternoon. The primary students (K-2) were preparing a musical show for Thursday night and the preschoolers were given their own bit for it by doing three songs of their own. Two were counting songs (the duck with five chicks and one runs away, leaving four, then three, and so on, and a similar one with frogs jumping in the water- glub, glub!) and the third was a weird version of “Singing in the Rain”. The other two had some movements the kids were given to do, but this song has them in the song ala “Hokey Pokey:” thumbs up, shoulders back, knees together, butt out, tongue out… All given one at a time and added on to the rest so by the end it’s a true video-moment seeing the kids doing all of that. Those of you with kids might know the song I’m talking about. They also practiced these songs during the song time. For morning, the rehearsal took the place of the start-of-day work and caused centers to be shortened. even though we only stayed to do our songs and then left.
Right after calendar was read-aloud time. In Spanish. With a tape (whew…)- I only had to hold the book up and turn the pages. Apparently the title was funny- I just wish I knew why, but I forgot to ask the assistant. I read Spanish about as well as I speak it. For my center, they worked on making ducks with construction paper. The outlines of what to cut out were already drawn for them so they just had to cut them out and glue them on in the right spot. I added a 3-D element by folding the beak, feet, and wings so they stuck out. As par for course, there were things glued upside down or lopsided, or even in the wrong place. Most did fine though.
At the end of the day, they went outside to the playground. This was the easiest part- just watching them to make sure they didn’t get hurt. After this, I had to strap in a bunch of students in the bus. They put their seatbelts on, I had to tighten them. For about ten kids each in the AM and PM. One also had additional gear to attach him to the seat which fortunately I had seen before in the mentally impaired classrooms I’ve worked in so I knew what to do with this.
Again, thanks to the help of the assistant I survived the day. Next up, 5th grade then 8th grade social studies. Tomorrow. Three posts is enough for one day, for me at least… 🙂
I remember a version from Bible School called Father Abraham in which we would use different body parts ala Hokey Pokey.
“Goose” taught me a song she learned in school during our Florida vacation but it slips my mind.
She might be familiar with this song. Taylhis can tell us for sure.