I wrote a post two days ago, but because it involves a video I need permission to link to and the ones I asked have yet to respond.  Well, I don’t really know if I’ve asked them yet or not- if I send an email asking a question, is it asked when I hit the send button or when they read the email?  Apparently they are swamped at work right now.  Sigh.

So, how about this week then?  Well, on Monday I drove to Crystal Lake to observe a job photographing cars for online/magazine classifieds.  While this sort of job is done by one person at any given dealership (or rather, group of dealerships) there were two there I was able to observe and question since one was in training.  Training?  I wasn’t told about that, or the meager $250/week during such training, but hey- it’s $250/week more than what I made over the last several summers.  I guess it’s roughly equivalent to an $8/hr fulltime job, but only when training.  After that, it’s $7/car commission.  The ones I observed do around 100 cars a week, so that’s $700 per week right there.  I called the owner back Wednesday and said I was still interested, and will meet with him next week.

Tuesday I felt like I was in uniform with the rest of the kids as I subbed in 4th grade.  You see, the school I was at has a dress code (the only one in any of the districts I’m in as far as I know, well besides the standard stuff like no exposed midriffs, no beer t-shirts, etc).  They can wear red or blue polo shirts with I suppose certain pants or shorts (not sure of the exact code on the legwear), and I just happened to wear a red polo shirt that day so I ended up matching a third of the class 😀 .At one point during the day all the red-shirts were grouped together in the same general area doing partner work and I just had to comment on it.  And for the Trekkie readers, yes we all survived as we weren’t on an away mission 😛 .It was a pretty enjoyable day.

Wednesday I was in another elementary school subbing for an MI (mentally impaired) teacher.  He had eight kids, mostly 6th grade, so they were in their last days at this school.  So was the teacher apparently as he will be retiring after this year.  In fact, there seem to be half a dozen retirees-to-be at this supersized district school- When parking that morning I saw no less than six reserved spots for retiring teachers, including the teacher I subbed for.  I didn’t park in his spot, but I wonder if I should have?  Back to the class, Ironically, the largest student there was one of the 5th grade girls.  It was mostly a day of simple things like alphabetizing words, identifying letters and coins, and reading a simple book with them.  The end of the day had the students making predictions on how many blocks the kids could stack in a minute, then seeing how good their predictions were.  There was one who liked making predictions of forty-something or seventy-something, even after seeing the last student stack less than 20.  Well, I said what sort of class this is.  Theu also made cards for the teacher which is how I really discovered he was retiring since I had mostly ignored the names on the reserved parking signs on the way in.

Today saw me back in supersized district for 7th grade language arts.  For the first time in a long time, I saw one of my former students from church in one of the three block periods I had.  This school apparently has an abundance of teachers as the average class size was only 15 students.  In junior high.  This would seem to me to be the probably first place for cutbacks if they have any for next year from our sagging economy.  The students listened to a reading of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi by Rudyard Kipling, which I just now discovered while finding these Wikipedia links is actually a short story in The Jungle Book, which likewise I never knew until now is a short story collection rather than a full novel.  I knew the movies were based on the book of course, I just always thought it was a novel- you learn something new every day!  Of course, never having read the book this was the first time reading this story for me as well.

So that catches me up for now.  Hopefully I can move that one post from drafts tomorrow, just as soon as I get the permission I’m sure they’ll give once they have a chance to respond to my email.

(Big Nate ©Lincoln Peirce)

This past week I could be found in a middle school every day.  In fact, I was in one school for three days for two teachers.  I started the week in near-city district at the school that was closed for a few days a couple of weeks ago due to swine H1N1 flu.  Yes, I’m still fine, thanks for wondering 😉 ..  The class was IT, though in actuality he only had four classes (I believe I mentioned before that at this school 6th grade doesn’t take this class).  To make up for it, he had a tutorial, something usually only the core teachers have, and lunch detention.  It is my understanding that under normal circumstances lunch detention has only ten or less students.  Monday had 23 😯 ..  Most didn’t have passes though as was supposedly required.  Huh.  So as typical in this class which doesn’t have an assistant like in hometown district, students didn’t work on IT projects.  Instead, students had to read a packet then do three worksheets based on it.  Yeah, kind of a blah day for the kids.  The packet only covered about half the chapter that the worksheets had questions on I discovered later in the day.  So naturally I informed the students of this… hey, are you kidding??  Like they needed an excuse to be lazy and not do it.  “Hey, I didn’t find the answer in two seconds so it must be in the half I didn’t get to read so I’ll just skip the question.”  My lips were sealed about this little discovery 😈 ..

Tuesday and Wednesday I subbed for sixth-grade math.  Not that I taught any, nope.  Still in near-city district, I was at their other middle school and the teacher left plans just having students work on problems out of their books.  This is the sort of assignment in which one hears about subs falling asleep…  They were generally well-behaved, at least in my book.  The resource teacher however, who came in for a couple of periods, didn’t think so as she was very…not friendly.  My highlights were going over the warmups (not listed in the plans, but I did it anyway just to have something to do) in each of the math classes, but for her one social studies class I just suffered in silence as I babysat.

Thursday I was in hometown district, so I didn’t have to drive as far.  This time I was with 7th grade language arts.  They had a spelling test, afterwhich they worked on a persuasive writing packet for the rest of the time.  You may be thinking, “Spelling test? But it’s only Thursday!”  Well yes, but this district had an institute day Friday making it a four-day weekend instead of three (Memorial Day ya know).  Near-city district on the other hand was supposed to have a four-day weekend, though Tuesday instead of Friday being the off day, however for them Tuesday was a buffer day that got changed due to the winter’s snow days.

Speaking of near-city district, as you already surmised from my opening paragraph I was back at Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s schools as a 6th grade resource teacher.  No, not that one, but the one for the other team.  I’ll tell you, her first period was very busy.  Do this, then this, then this, then this…  Fortunately she gave me time constraints, otherwise it would have turned into a do this, then this, then leave a note on how we ran out of time for the rest period.  Out of the rest of the day, team teaching with another teacher followed by a tutorial period, two of the periods were quite interesting as there were two subs in the room- a lot of teachers were out- could Memorial weekend have anything to it I wonder..? Come to think of it, there were a lot out on Thursday too in hometown district…  Anyway, there was a little more restlessness in these students than the ones earlier in the week which I fully understand since it was a holiday weekend coming up after all.

So that was my week at work.  I do hope I get a chance to fill this week, all four days of school, but I suspect I won’t have four full days.

Back to the school I subbed in for art last week, about four doors past in fact in 4th and 5th grade row.  It was another day with no break for specials, not even computer lab like Tuesday.  The morning consisted of a large language arts block with a reading from their Treasures reading book and some guided reading.  I made an error in the guided reading- I was supposed to have the second group read their books while the first group read and discussed their book with me.  I read this note as I was passing out the books after the first group finished- whoops.  So we read the book together.  Well, in the end neither group got to the next part so I left them on even footing.  That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. 🙂

Following language arts we had time for social studies before lunch.  They are using a book called History Alive! and we learned about the Bill of Rights.  In reading earlier the students read out of the book, but this time I was told to read to them so I did.  They ended the morning with working on review sheets for the chapter which they would finish for homework.  Lunchtime.

The afternoon began with math.  My job here was to go over the work they did for homework and turn it over to the teacher from across the hall who would come in and teach an enrichment lesson.  Kids as always enjoy coming up to the board so we did that when we could.  Unfortunately I went over by about ten minutes- why am I always so slow when it comes to teaching math?

The rest of the day was recess and speeches.  I got to listen to the kids introduce famous people, living or dead.  The teacher brought in a podium, but a few students were a bit on the short side so I had to scrounge around for a makeshift step for them using a couple of books and an overturned storage bin.  The books were underneath to prevent them from breaking the bin when they stood on it.  They seemed to have some well-written speeches which I presume were graded already, so today was more about the presentations.  What is probably the number one area needing improvement in giving speeches?  I didn’t look this up but I would guess eye contact as that is what most of them struggled with.  They tended to read right from their papers.  The first student who actually seemed to have decent eye contact ruined it by having his arms in front of his face because he had decided to rest them on the podium.  There were a few though who did a good job on eye contact though.  They also did quite well on volume.  I could easily hear and understand most of them.

That was pretty much it.  I was hoping to see a student of mine from church there as he was only two doors down but our paths never crossed.  I did mention it to him today when I saw him.  So, that brings us to…

While we’re on the military theme (see last post), I should mention yesterday.  I subbed at the school with the ELL troubles, right next door to that very room.  That was enough to turn a bad day into a much better one, in other words- no problems.  It was all eighth grade this time, and language arts.  Four classes of letting students work on advertisement projects while I just filtered around making sure they were working, one class where they watched the start of a movie (must see if the library has it so I can finish it!), and one tutorial/study hall.  All except one period went very well.  That one period had a few students who did not like to work.  One of them even got on the nerves of two of his group members, girls who bopped him on the head twice with a tissue box.  Hey, I think I forgot to write that part down for the teacher…  It was an empty box and he was laughing after it so no harm done.   The other two thought they would have a little marker war- with open markers.  The one’s white shirt was quite colorful after that.  Hopefully for his mom washable means completely washes out.

What?  You want to know about that military theme?  Well our military uses ads, so that’s the connection.  Okay, that wasn’t it.  No need to bop me with that tissue box 😛 .  I had noticed the teachers were all wearing T-shirts so I asked about them.  Apparently they like to periodically remind students of certain rules and drill them on it.  Each class takes a turn at this and fortunately language arts didn’t get the short straw this time.  Rather, during social studies the students were drilled on proper hallway manners.  That’s right, how to walk in the hall.  I actually ran into this drill- well really they almost ran into me- during one of my planning periods.  Students quietly marching through the hall like the school would ideally have them do it all the time.  Do these drills work?  I have no idea.  They just started them this year so it will take time to find out.  They’re probably wasted on eighth grade though since they will only be doing the drills this year before going on to high school, and you probably know how eighth-grade-itis goes.  They’re minds will be in high school weeks before they leave middle school.

Once again there was a second day with this teacher, and the same sub as last week got the second day.  This time I would have gotten it had I not already been committed at another school for today so I’m not complaining.  It was actually a very easy day too.  I subbed for the industrial tech teacher, and they had just started the, er, hexter.  And semester (6 weeks and 18 weeks).  Which one matters depends on the grade, but in either case this was only their second day there (no school for them Monday) so they hadn’t started on any projects yet.  That, and the fact that I’m not sure they would be allowed to work on them with subs anyway, meant that they would be watching videos.  sixth grade watched a video on how cars are built.  It was quite informative- they showed a plant where Ford Mustangs were being built.  7th and 8th grades watched a video on movie stunts.  I’m not quite sure what that one had to do with IT, but that was what he wanted shown.  Guess which movie series had a prominent role in this video?  Indiana Jones?  Good guess, but only a minor showing.  Harry Potter?  Are you kidding me?  Yep, James Bond.  Loaded with stunts.  Yes, I know that was your first guess- I was just messing with you   8) : .  A very unevenful day with six very good groups of kids.  Today was this school’s turn for 8th grade graduation pictures (tomorrow at Tuesday’s school) but they had it set up so each student had an appointment, so they just left from whatever class they were in at the appropriate time.  Lots of nice clothes on most of them, though many realized their lower portions wouldn’t be in the photo so there were several guys with dress shirts and ties with jeans.  😮  Anyway, uneventful as I said, until about ten minutes before the end of the day when a 7th grader chose that time to be sick all over the table.  That was the end of the video for that group as they all headed away from the sick spot, then couldn’t stop talking about it.  Well, it was the end of the day.  The custodian was called, he was sent to the nurse, and that was that.  Yep, that’s that for today.  😉

The regular reader knows just what letter to place in the title parentheses to complete the picture of my day today.  Some time ago I wrote about an experience at a school that left me passing over certain assignments for the next year.  A couple of months ago took the challenge and subbed for that teacher again since most of those former ELL students were gone and was relieved that things had changed for the better, so when another ELL assignment popped up at that school I took it without a second thought.  It was for a teacher I don’t remember, but it shouldn’t have been a problem.  Well, we have second thoughts for a reason so taking the job without one was akin to famous last words like, “Nothing will go wrong; trust me.”

So, at the beginning of the day I arrived and it was mentioned that it was a two-day assignment.  What?  Two days?  I had to check my schedule again because I was sure it was only one day.  The teacher, who was there but would be testing students, finished going over the plans with me and I went right to a computer.  Yep- just one day.  At that point I was actually hopeful there was a mistake and it was supposed to be two.  By the end of the day I was glad it was not a mistake at all.  For some reason the two-day absence was put in as two separate assignments- my guess being that the software they use cannot support multiple-day assignments as I have never seen a multi-day assignment posted.  I had two such assignments a few months ago in this district, but it was put in manually as a different job number for each day which just serves to validate this theory.  So apparently what happened was I got one day, another sub got the other day.  I do hope she is up to it.   Ironically, she was there today subbing for another ELL class, the one I had no trouble with earlier this year.

When going over the plans I was somewhat pleased to find that I would be covering three math classes.  I expected the toughest would be 8th grade, so once that was over (it was the second class- 7th grade was the first) and things were still going, if not smooth, only slightly rough I thought it would be a pretty good day.  The rough spot for 8th grade was really no more than the quick quiz at the beginning being anything but quick for a few students, making less time for going over homework and letting them get started on their assignment.  So, after a two-period break I was ready for sixth grade math.  Remember those famous last words?  Ready- Uh-huh.  This was the loudest and most complaining class I’ve had in the last couple of years with some boys who loved knocking over the books of each other while I wasn’t looking.  Sigh.  They even complained when I didn’t check in their homework.  I mean, who complains about that??  Just take the extra day to have it done as a gift and keep quiet about it!  Then the plans called for them to take a test which they had in their packets.  Did you catch what was wrong with that sentence?  In their packets.  So what happens when some students couldn’t find their packets and the teacher didn’t leave behind extras?  Well, I found out.  I had three kids run to the office, which I only did because it was just down the hall, so someone in the office might take pity and make some copies for me.  Then I found some students only had one of the pages.  They had ripped the other page out, which had a prior assignment on the back.  Back to the office?  Not a chance- the secretaries suffered enough with the two runs (they only copied the first page last time) so I just marked down their names and let it go.  I also forgot to thank them after school too when I checked out- oops.  And throughout this there were some students who just would not stop talking.  I needed this class before the two-period break, not after.

So after this class was a multi-grade language arts class.  Needless to say, some of the 6th-graders from math were back for two more periods (block period).  While not as bad as the prior math class, it had its own challenges.  8th grade left after the first half to see counselors from their respective high schools they would go to next year, and that relieved some pressure but not all- remember 6th grade was still there and so was a very obnoxious 7th-grade girl who loved talking back and doing as little work as possible.  After this class and a tutorial class (study hall) the day was finally over.  Now I’m writing it up for you to enjoy too…

I have said in other posts that 5th grade is probably my favorite grade followed by 4th and then 6th.  Well, yesterday I had a late call to sub for 5th and 6th grade.  I knew I would be late and I wasn’t disappointed in this regard when I ended up 15 minutes late mostly due to the snowy roads as we got another couple of inches overnight.  This district by the way is famous for its schools closing their parking lots when the buses arrive.  I thought I was safe from this at this school since the buses don’t go into the parking lot area.  I was wrong, but didn’t realize it right away so I turned into a drive that had cones only halfway across.  This is a common tactic when they only allow one-way traffic so I thought nothing of it until a teacher started blowing her whistle behind me.  Well, I will now add this school to the list of the district’s schools I can never be late for if I actually want to park my car.  Since I was already in the lot, she let me park.  This time.

So, once I got in, there was the teacher, still in the room.  She was still getting things ready and hadn’t left yet.  She would come back in the afternoon too to test some of the kids one on one.  She got the kids started while I looked over the plans.  There were only two things: math in the morning and language arts after lunch.  Oh, there was a special in the morning so I had a half hour off to continue to look at the plans.  Besides the special, I had math all morning because I taught two classes.  First was 5th grade, then they went into another room and 6th grade came in for their turn.  Following lunch, I continued with 6th grade for writing before swapping back for reading with the 5th graders.

All in all the day wasn’t too bad, but these kids were talkers.  Whenever they had a chance they would chat it up.  By the end of the day this really wore me down.  The last three short nights for me probably added to this too.  I was glad when it was over.

Today I was set to do 7th grade science.  Then every sub’s favorite “you are no longer needed” call came in first thing in the morning.  Apparently the districts didn’t wan’t kids coming to school in -8ishºF weather as all of them around me called a day off.  Unfortunately, tomorrow looks like another non-payday for me too with a forecast of even colder morning temperatures.  What a day today for a plane to end up in a freezing river.  I pray that all involved fare much better than the bird the plane apparently hit.

Well, I have been on the early shift for the last couple of days and I just have to say that that, coupled with my tendency to not sleep through the night, makes for one tired teacher.  Yesterday I had it easy.  I left to a temperature outside over 40º colder than it was the night before, and on icy roads thanks to the rain the day and night before, on a slow trip all the way to middle school science.  The teacher did not expect to be out again and so another teacher set me up with a couple of videos.  One was a left-leaning news special titled Who Killed the Electric Car? True, it is a really good question as we could use them these days as I would expect the gas prices to go up significantly again.  Well, unleaded prices anyway as diesel hasn’t actually dropped all that much since the summer in comparison.  I say left-leaning as when it got to talking about government as a suspect (battery technology, consumers, oil companies, car companies, and others were also suspects) it pretty much painted Republican presidents like Reagan and Bush Jr. as evil, signing environmentally unfriendly bills into law, and praises Democratic presidents Carter and Clinton on their policies.  Again, this doesn’t erase the question about electric cars though- we really should be seeing more of them than we are.  A lot more actually since according to the video GM’s EV-1 cars were all destroyed back in 2004.  The closest thing we have at the moment I believe are hybrids like the Toyota Prius.  The entire video was 90 minutes so I only got to see a portion of it, four times of course…  Two classes saw a Bill Nye video on the atmosphere.  Oddly enough, this teacher teaches both 7th and 8th grades, a bit unusual for middle school.

Today I went to the other side of the brain to language arts.  It was an even easier day.  Two of the classes (four periods) were team taught, so I was reduced to helper status for these periods.  The other two periods were really small groups- one with six students and one with three.  The one with three was the most challenging as one of the students was in a very goofy mood.  Where the title of this post comes into play is in the book a teacher read aloud in one of the classes.  As the class started she was reading about Marley so I thought this was going to be about another story, play actually, the classes had also been working on fitting for this time of year.  Of course I mean Charles Dicken’s classic A Christmas Carol.  However I soon realized this was another story entirely- the middle school version of the book Marley & Me.  This movie is coming out Christmas Day and after today’s excerpt I can confidently say I will be skipping it.  The chapter started out talking about John taking Marley to Dog Beach (I think that was the name), but no dog ever messed on the beach so Marley would have to take care of business beforehand, which he did in a colorful description depicting the act.  While at the beach, Marley was playing in the water and drinking quantities of the salty liquid while running around, refusing the offered fresh water.  As a result, the dog upchucked and there was another lovely description of this event.  Naturally it didn’t stop there as the salt water also caused loose bowels.  Thankfully the teacher stopped before describing this event.  Now I realize this will likely take up only seconds on the screen, and knowing Hollywood those scenes will be there, but I have to ask myself if the author was willing to gross readers out by going into detail on these scenes, then what else is in this book?  I think I do not wish to find out.  Thanks for saving me $10 plus refreshments.

The first job I selected for the fourth district I am now in may still be coming, but the second job was a two-day job for 8th grade language arts.  It was at the school where I know a few of the kids from my church.  As it turns out the school is only about a half mile from my church too.  I noticed on the map that this school was comprised of two buildings: an elementary and a junior high school.  As such, I did not expect to run into them since they are in elementary.  As it turns out, the schools were connected and there is some shared space such as the cafeteria.  I still didn’t run into them on the first day though.  It was actually the second day when I was entering the building that I saw two of them.  They were early because they were doing broadcasting, which is becoming increasingly common in schools these days.  At this school I would guess the elementary and junior high sides share this as well, with the elementary using it in the morning and the junior high in the afternoon during their homeroom.

This day was divided into two-period blocks again, another common thing in junior high/middle school that I did not have when I was in junior high.  Reading and other english classes were separate.  Would you believe I had a dedicated spelling class in 6th grade?  “What class do you have next- math?  Gym?  Social studies?”  “No, I have spelling.”  I don’t even recall what we did all week outside of the pre- and post-tests.  I do remember some of the tests were verbal though, and not a fun game like sparkle either.  There was one time they gave me the word “anxiety” and I mumbled something like “angziety” but when asked to repeat myself louder I changed my answer and got it right- total luck.

The first two blocks were 8th grade as the job description promised.  On Thursday they had a test which followed the daily “caught ya”  sentence correction.  Easy enough for me.  Following that we started an Edger Allan Poe story in their books.  Rather than reading it together there was a CD recording.  Unfortunately this was so soft the room had to be absolutely silent in order to hear the reader.  We only got through a few pages of this.  I tried to play it on the DVD player and see if it came out any louder through the TV than the portable CD player, but oddly enough the DVD player didn’t recognize the CD.  Did it only play DVDs?  First time I’ve ever encountered a DVD player that didn’t play CDs, unless it was just this one for some reason.

The last block was 7th grade.  They started the same way, with a daily sentence and a test.  The same test in fact as eighth grade.  Huh?  She gives the same lesson to both grades?  Well, not in every case as it turns out.  Following the test we did vocabulary and were supposed to do a worksheet on symbolism in poetry afterward, though we ran out of time before finishing the vocabulary.

Between these blocks was the 4th period lunch, starting at 10:07.  I guess I should really say breakfast.  Remember I mentioned the two schools sharing some space?  Well this early lunch was a consequence of that.  I am pleased to say I didn’t truly get a chance to eat until 1:30.  The teacher I was subbing for only had the first and last periods of (not counting homeroom, which follows the last period).  She apparently has lunch duty during 4th.  As the general rule goes, if the teacher has a job (s)he gets paid extra for, the sub doesn’t do it.  If it’s part of the regular duties, the sub has to do it too.  Some schools pay a stipend for lunch duty, some don’t.  This one does, so even though I didn’t get to eat until late I was quite happy because this school is an exception to the rule and gives subs a chance to earn stipend pay in cases like this, so I did! 🙂

The last ten minutes of the day was homeroom.  That’s right, ten minutes.  Well, they had to fit in the broadcast announcements some time, and elementary uses the room at the start of the day, so enter homeroom period.  There is not enough time to work on homework in the last few minutes following announcements, so the kids get to chat.

Friday was similar to Thursday, except the plans were different.  8th grade watched a video, again on Edgar Allan Poe, and 7th grade finally got to work on POEtry (sorry, my bad attempt at a pun) once they finished vocabulary.  Following homeroom, I got a surprise: another student from my church.  He’s in 7th grade now, but when he was in 4th grade I had him on the weekends.  He should have been with me for 5th grade too, except he was allowed to start going to the church’s junior high program for some reason I never fathomed.  Ironic, considering as far as school is concerned this district doesn’t start junior high until 7th grade.  I was going to mention this to his dad since I volunteer with him, but he wasn’t there this weekend.

So, how was your week? 🙂

And only day this week, partly thanks to my connection issues which are unfortunately still ongoing.  I had no internet at all for yesterday afternoon and evening, while today it’s been intermittent.  I wonder if the signal is now too powerful if that’s possible?  I mean, it was going through a cable that was chewed or worn to the center wire, so it’s possible that in the past they have had to increase it to compensate (the cable didn’t get that way overnight after all) and now that it’s fixed, the signal may be too strong.  Just throwing a guess out which is probably completely off.  The tech who was here was unable to measure it as his portable reader needed recharging.  Since the connection was up and I was getting nice speeds (around 19000kbps on speakeasy.net), he just let it go.

Still in special ed on Friday, but not due to meetings this time.  Apparently the teacher had a bad case of bronchitis on Thursday so he wisely opted to take Friday off.  It was actually a rather easy day.  Four classes (well, three really- one was a typical two-period-long language arts class) were team teaching, meaning that a sub just takes the role of a teaching assistant while the other teacher takes over the teaching part.  The other two classes were resource periods.  I just gave them a topic to write about in their journals and once finished they just worked on homework.  There was also a teaching assistant in these classes (a sub too, by the way) so as you can imagine it was a pretty light day.  Next Thursday and Friday I have a job lined up for ELL in another district.  This is a teacher I refused to work for last year or most of the year before.  I am hoping things have changed since most of the students from that problem class have gone on to high school.  I will let you know how it goes, hopefully with other stories throughout the week.

Going back to elementary was quite a difference from the last several days, in more than one way.  First, going from age 12-14 to age 8.  There is a world of difference between teens and second-graders.  Second, going from the specials to the academics.  The last week has been dominated with Industrial Tech and PE, with a short break in ELS (also quite different from second grade even though some of the material is similar…).  Finally, working with a single group of kids all day instead of over a hundred.

I didn’t actually do much teaching today.  They really have a routine down with language arts centers so all I had to do there was introduce what they would be doing and then help here and there when some didn’t understand something or other.  Math was just an end-of-year assessment (didn’t need to be reminded of this- the lean season known as “summer” is nigh upon me).  They had a handwriting worksheet I only needed to introduce, again, and computer lab in the afternoon where someone else pretty much ran the show while I helped.  I did get to start a book for read aloud, a Mexican Cinderella.  They are on a unit apparently about Mexico, including learning some Spanish.  Across the room were their attempts at making the Mexican flag which I had to duck under every time I crossed the room.  The teacher I subbed for must be much shorter.

Well, it was fun and I did at least get to work with a class I have worked with once before so there were less surprises- I’ll tell you subbing in an elementary classroom requires a lot more work than in a middle school classroom.  Breaking routine can be difficult with younger students, whereas older ones just take in stride and adapt.  Therefore, studying the routine from the plans takes up some time.  Well, enough of this blathering on.  On to bed and then a different second-grade class tomorrow.