DAY 53 of subbing – K in Livonia

I got insufficient sleep, yet overslept, left the house angry, had poor directions, showed up late to teach Kindergarten in Westland (partly my fault, partly Google Maps’ fault), and the day didn’t improve much after that.
These kids were rowdy, and though a staff member told me she would take care of the breakfast/lunch count/attendance stuff, the office bothered me three times about it while I was trying to corral this wild bunch.
Cutting and gluing was a disaster with constant questions, glue all over the table (no glue sticks here) and crazy people. After the project was finished I directed them to sit on the carpet and started a round of singing “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” to keep them occupied while I scrubbed five tables using nothing but (useless) brown paper towel, water and a bit of hand soap. When another project called for cutting and pasting, I didn’t do that part.

The reading lesson and writing lesson went okay and I threw in a book reading and the Hokey Pokey just for crowd control. Overall, it wasn’t so bad, but if a teacher wants me to put something up on the Promethean board (computer run) then she needs to leave specific instructions of how to use her particular one – and the same goes for when the kids are supposed to have computer time! It was quite frustrating.

My shift was done at their lunch break (12:20) and since a bunch of them gave me hugs, I figure I didn’t do too badly. But I was not done feeling crabby, so I was glad to only work a half a day today.

Best line of the day: I read them a book about a Grumpy Cat who didn’t realize he was lonely. A kitten tried to befriend him and he kept rejecting the kitten (they lived outdoors by trash cans). I opened up a discussion about what was happening. One little girl said (using the appropriate hand motion that goes with the 7 Habits) “He didn’t want to make it Win-Win.”   🙂