Sick Day

I'm sick....definitely sick. Mandatory day off for Strep Throat and no clue what went on with my students today. Or even who was in the classroom with them! Not that I doubted that they were in good hands, but since I don't have anyone else in the classroom with me on a daily basis there's no one  reliable to keep things going forward. The children are helpful and have good intentions but....not exactly reliable.

I spent all morning wondering what they were doing.

Did C keep trying to use the Land and Water forms, even though I've told him countless times that he's not ready yet?

What about O, how many things did he errantly tell the sub "Yes, I"ve been shown that." He really has no idea what he can practice or not.

And poor W, he was gone and Monday and now his first day back and there'll be someone different in a room that re-arranged on him.

I thought about M, if she was trying to hide away from the stranger in the room. Circling around their peripheral vision like she did with the photographer.

S and C I'm not worried about too much, I bet the two of them actually had a good time telling the substitute how things usually worked. Maybe even being a little bit bossy to them about doing it like Teacher Alex said. Hey, I can hope can't I?

One thing I wasn't concerned about them forgetting though was putting a bead on the string. Each day we add a new one to our bead calendar. It's become their end of the day tradition. They clap, they cheer, they grin with excitement when that bead goes on. Last week I even caught C pretending to be putting on the bead of the day using the large wooden beads we have for an early fine motor activity. She was sitting on the chair and each bead she put on she'd say "this bead's for Monday," or tuesday or Funday or Mesterday, whatever came to mind. A few of the others even drifted over to watch her too, giggling once they realized what she was doing.

So, I'm pretty sure there's no way they let the sub forget to put on the bead at least. One thing taken care of for sure!

I spoke too soon

So this post is a bit late but with good reason. (there's always a good reason isn't there?) Anyways, my previous post was about pumpkin carving, and how trying to have even just one organized activity made the day a lot longer. Well the day after that the head teacher of our classroom was gone for the day to get her son in for a long overdue doctors visit. So after a long Wednesday I found myself playing at head teacher the next day. So yeah, get ready for another me centered post rather than one about the awesome children I work with. Don't worry though, they'll return soon!

Don't get me wrong it went great. The kids were very well behaved, and a few of our youngest children were out sick so the day wasn't quite as busy as it normally would have been. Because it was Thursday the children also had French. For this they go out of the classroom for about 15 mins for the younger children, and half and hour for the older. While the rest of the morning was pretty smooth, it was nice to have the class size reduced by about 10 when French began.

Next came our recess time adventure. Recess is a part of my normal schedule, but dogs jumping the fence into our play yard is not. There's a Shepard/Collie mix in one of the yards behind our school who gets really excited when the kids come out and start running around. We're talking excessive barking, pacing and putting front paws up the fence. Well this particular day the dog got so excited that he used the wood pile as a vaulting block and ended up in our play yard.

Then he must have decided he really didn't want to be where all these screaming kids were and that's when he discovered he couldn't get back over the fence. Of course all the children were so excited about the dog, some were nervous but most just really wanted to go and pet it. Luckily they all respond really well when I yell "Line up at the school" since that's the phrase we use every day to start our game. So we got the children all corralled in one part of the yard and with the help of the neighbor got the dog back over the fence. The children could hardly talk about anything else the rest of recess.

Then the afternoon rolled around. My normal afternoon is pretty relaxed. After getting the younger children into the nap room I have almost an hour to take my break and prep any materials we need in the classroom (usually cutting paper or designing artwork). Then when the first group of nappers gets up I go back into the classroom to help with the children who are awake. With our regular teacher gone I was busy all afternoon. The extended day children (those who stay awake all afternoon) kept themselves busy brainstorming ideas for 'we missed you' cards for our missing teacher (there was a decided Halloween theme!) while I helped get the nappers ready.

Myself and the older children read a chapter from the boxcar children and made cards, then got back down to serious work. The older children have these checklists they are supposed to complete during the day. These checklists are just to make sure that they do a writing work, another type of language work, and a math work. It also helps prepare those who are going in to Elementary where they will plan their own projects and make the deadlines for them. Right now though only two of our children are confident readers, the others need help reading the options on their checklist. And I made the mistake of just reading the lists aloud without seeing what was on there. That was how I ended up trying to give three new presentations as well as trying to deal with the normal mishaps that come up in the course of the day. Oh, ad did I mention that soon after starting this I had the newly awakened nappers come join our classroom? Luckily there were only two who didn't sleep. But still, it was a far cry from a normal afternoon when there are two adults in there for the majority of the afternoon.

So yeah, while it went well I was pretty exhausted by the end of the day. But I'd already told some friends I would go climbing with them. Waiting for them to get to the gym all I could think about was doing this-

Oh, and then on Friday one of our other staff left at 1 o'clock instead of 3:30 like normal. So I was in charge of taking out all the garbage in the school (it's amazing how much we generate, mainly from paper towels) and extra daycare duty after school. Nothing that I haven't done before but it was a good thing that it was Friday. A day of pumpkin carving, having our regular teacher gone, then filling in for yet another staff member wiped me out. Hopefully next week will be more normal....except for there's Halloween....I better rest up.