DAY 111

The bad news: I must have left my glasses at my parents’ apartment.

The good news: I did NOT have to be the person who inspected the heads of 15 kids for lice – because I didn’t have my glasses! One student who was there yesterday has them, apparently, but no one in today’s class had them. Whew!

Today was a half day. The kids had gym for 50 minutes. Then we  had worktime which included handwriting and some did a few other tasks. After that it was snack time followed by a 20 minute recess outside in the playground – very nice outside, though in the low 50s.

Then I gave them all a drawing lesson. 🙂 I have a book about how to draw animals and characters, and it turned out to be perfect for Kindergarten kids! They came to the “circle” (on the carpet) and I gave them each a piece of card stock (because I had some) and a pencil. Step by step, I drew various animals on the white board, with them doing their best. Some of them did pretty well, and others tried their best. I think I will carry this book in my car because I could use it in other classrooms and age groups – I find that many kids love to draw, but few know how, or only know how to do one thing. Next time I think I’ll focus on doing one or two animals instead of going through 4-5. Some of the kids started way too small and couldn’t fit in the details. Each animal started by making an oval – so by the last one, little R. blurted out, “Oval!” She had caught on. I talked about the shapes seen in the human body. I encouraged them to get books on How to Draw out of the library.

Besides M., who too often wants to be the teacher, and has overstepped her bounds often, there is also A. A constantly asks to help, neatens up the book piles, and wanted a turn to take attendance today because M. had one on Wednesday. But today, A. took it WAY too far. Besides being caught grabbing the distributed pencil given to the girl next to her and “making” her trade (which I described to her as very selfish and thinking she was better than the other person), A. decided that she was in charge as we left recess. She actually went over and OPENED the gate before I got there, which encouraged several students to begin walking out into the parking lot! I was very upset with her for this. I caught them before they went out of the gate and had them cross the parking lot with me near them. Some ran ahead and opened the school’s door without waiting – another no-no. They got an earful from me after both of THOSE decisions. Not safe!

By the time drawing time was over, we handed out some  mozzarella sticks that had been brought for snack by one of the students, and then cleaned up. We sang the two songs I’ve taught them, and then, as they left the room, I collected 13 hugs. 🙂 Probably their teacher will be back on Monday. I hope she isn’t too distraught over the small changes I made to her room this week. I left her a fairly detailed report of what we did each day, and mentioned a couple of the problemsI I would be glad to stay in this class. But – I would have to get a better idea of how they are supposed to progress in their subjects, because many of them are doing the same tasks over and over and not moving forward – a result of the teacher not being there to make precise plans, and us getting by as best we can.  Likely I’ll be bouncing around again next week – but at least I’ll still be with American Montessori Academy. I think I’ll buy one of their t-shirts. 🙂

I could have found work for the afternoon, but since my knees are bothering me a lot, I chose to come home and spend more than an hour traversing the insurance/doctor systems in an effort to find an appt with someone who can tell me what to do to fix these knees.