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… 🙂

No, I am not posting about Annie, but rather when FedEx gets over here tomorrow with my new computer. My old one died last year, hard drive failed again making think there is something wrong with the controller as it ended its life in the same way as the one it replaced. Second hard drive worked all the way through. Fortunately I was able to get a final backup of critical data before it stopped working altogether. I have been using someone else’s computer ever since, but it will be good to have my own again. Which reminds me, I will need a wireless router now so I can use the computer anywhere, after all what good is a laptop if I can’t surf the net from the bathroom? 😀 Time to join the new millennium, eh? I’ll probably pick one up on ebay.

Well, second day of second grade. Different school, different class, different experience. I actually got to do some teaching today, though only in math. They seemed to be a few sections behind the other school interestingly enough. Basic multiplication facts. That can kill the joy of math for many… They did get to draw at least rather than just writing numbers. They would draw arrays, like a 4 by 6 array for the problem 4×6=24. Aside from math I went over answers, did some reading aloud about how a movie is made interjecting my own thoughts as well as getting theirs on the process, and, well, that’s about it for the teaching I guess. The rest was more or less babysitting and trying to learn their particular routines. And no specials for this class today by the way. Aside from recess and lunch I was with them constantly, though like the class yesterday they had computer lab time where someone else was at least in charge even if I didn’t get to put my feet up in the lounge.

The lounge- what a tiny room to be crammed so full of teachers. There was just enough room for three long tables pretty close together with just enough room to walk around them. It wouldn’t ordinarily be so bad as teachers tend to go out for lunch, but today they had a cookout with grilled steaks and chicken, and baked potatoes. I’m not sure who all was invited to the cookout, but I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know about it. So instead of going out, they all got their food and came into the lounge crowding around the tables. I felt sort of like this:

It didn’t help much that half the table space was taken up by three large cakes (someone’s birthday- don’t know what the other two were for) as well as a couple of miscellaneous snacks of which I did partake. 🙂

Well, aside from a 5th grade band concert in the afternoon, it was pretty much a normal day I would say. Good group of kids though a bit talkative and some would move about without permission. And now a long three or four (hoping just three) day weekend. Two districts are off on Tuesday so I may be out of work that day as well as Monday…

By the way, 100th post for me!

Today was possibly one of the best days I have had in a long time.  It really reminded me why I am most comfortable with kids in 4th-6th grades.  The class really went well.  Remember the one fifth grade class I talked about in my music entry a few days ago?  This was pretty much opposite, more like the two 4th grade classes I had that day.  It is really unfortunate I am not so comfortable teaching things like reading and writing.  What other career can place me with this age group but not involve standard teaching?  Coaching is out of course as I am definitely not sports oriented- speaking of which, did you hear about what boys are doing now for sport in Missouri? Put it this way: it is illegal in most states.  Check it out at this link (click).  Actually, once I saw the video (there is a video at that link, but I’m not sure it’s the same one I saw) it didn’t seem so bad, which is why I am not telling you what it is and making you go to the link instead. 🙂  The only reservations I have is that they are teaching this to boys as young as six.

Anyway, back to today.  I didn’t do much teaching this morning, what with computer lab time and art taking up an hour and a half, but what teaching I did I really enjoyed.  Following art, they had spelling (still no teaching, but some preparation and study time for their test Friday) and reading.  I got to read aloud a book that was actually pretty good, though I didn’t like the ending at all.  It was called My Brother Sam is Dead.  With what happened in the chapter I read to the class, one would hope for a miracle to happen in the next chapter, but what happens is really quite sad.  I’ll leave it a little mysterious in case you want to read it- hopefully I didn’t say too much.  I don’t think I did.

This led us to lunch.  After lunch there was just math and science left.  For math I got the advanced group with only around 15 students.  This group was in the 6th grade book.  I actually almost got through what the teacher expected me to get through.  I only needed about five minutes more instead of the typical 15-30 minutes more…  For science we talked about energy sources.  They had read about fossil fuels and hydropower yesterday, and we picked up with solar, nuclear, and other forms of energy today.  It was a good read and discussion.  By the time we finished, I was a little disappointed it was time to go home, it was such a good day.  Oh well, it couldn’t last forever.  And tomorrow I’ve got 7th grade…  Well, 7th grade science!  I just hope I don’t have to show another video like that Al Gore one I showed at this school last time.  That was not fun, though not as bad as 7th grade sex-ed I had to do at another school around that same time. 😮