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I took three days off to go to Lynden, WA to visit my kids and some friends. I ended up taking another day off because my plane was delayed coming from Chicago to Detroit and I didn’t get to bed until 3 a.m. and I have either a bad cold or a bad allergic reaction to all the “Spring” in Lynden.

Today I was back in the classroom, in first grade at the Montessori School. One of my ears still hasn’t popped clear so I had a hard time hearing what some of them said. On the other hand, their out-of-control noisiness may have been easier to handle because of that. 🙂 I really did not feel well all day, but I soldiered on. A lot of the kids were way too chatty and felt way too free to move around the room at will, and I ended up getting quite fed up with a few of them. I was very eager for 4 p.m. to arrive.

Usually I will corral everyone and use up the extra ten minutes of time here and there with a song or a book, but I just felt sick and impatient today, so they didn’t get the best Ms. Sharon; neither did I get the best “them.”

I did enjoy listening to some of the other teachers complain and explain during lunch break – often those sessions are quite informative. There’s a girl in this class I had today – funny, I said her name at least 25 times today and now it’s escaping me – anyway, she is the only girl in the school who wears a way too small, very dirty polo shirt to school regularly. I’m not sure why. Today after I asked about it (I’d be willing to buy her a shirt myself!) the staff said there was a story behind it (it’s not poverty). Later in the day some staff members decided to give her a shirt and if the parents complain, they devised what they will say. I suggested that they have her put it on – not just take it home, and the staff member agreed. The girl came back from the restroom wearing the new shirt, with a big grin on her face and declared, “It’s the new ME!”  I hope so.

I was back at Montessori today, with a pretty good group of second graders. Last time, there were so many problems with D. that I had to kick him out three times. Lately they have decided to take a different approach with him. I was told to invite him to do the work but not insist, and not make a big deal of it as long as he did not disturb the class. It was rather amazing. Not only did he behave very well, interrupt very little and even go on to have the best day he ever had in phys ed (the gym teacher even let him help put the equipment away, which he loved), he did actually do some of the work. And, he was there, listening, during all of it.

Obviously, this can’t be the plan for every kid or nothing would get done. But with this particular emotionally impaired child, it went very well.

I did my simple drawing lesson for this class and another one and most of the kids seemed to really enjoy it. Some were shocked to learn that one can go back to college when I mentioned that I have. 🙂

Off for five days in Lynden, Washington now. 🙂

I just had time for half a day because Henry Ford College decided to place my Art History final exam at 3:35 p.m.!
I’m not too happy with that decision. I might send them an invoice with my complaint letter.

I taught three Phys. Ed. classes at an elementary in Plymouth today. 5th grade, 3rd grade, and 2nd grade. We played Kickball in the gym because it was cold and damp outside. I nicknamed it “Argue-Ball.” No actual rules were left so I made them up to suit me based on what I remember (!) and what seemed logical. The older the kids – the more they argued about everything.

After letting the fifth graders boss and push and decide who played which position, I decided to assign the positions according to student number for the succeeding classes. It was cute to see tiny little girls being the pitcher. 🙂 They can roll it straight just as well or better than the jocks could. I had to stop an all-star-jerk from playing ALL the positions in the field at once, decide on a lot of close plays, and shout over all of their voices now and then. One thing I love about phys ed is that just about everyone wants to be there and wants to play, so they usually behave after the first warning. 🙂 It’s so easy to just make someone sit out for awhile – immediate results that wouldn’t work if I, say, made someone sit out for Language Arts or Social Studies. 🙂

I also got to wear capris and my Supergirl t-shirt to work. 🙂

Cinco de Mayo plus Teacher Appreciation Week = awesome free lunch of Mexican food!

Today I was at an elementary school in Plymouth and mostly I did one-on-one with A., a nice, but distracted fifth grade boy.
I managed to get him thru almost two Science pages and through 4 pages of Math, which quite surprised his teacher. We also completed another page of Science later in the day, but he refused when it came to writing a paper for Social Studies at the end of the day. I probably should have let him on the computer, but I thought there was only 15 minutes left of school – turns out it was more like half an hour.

Some of the day there was nothing for me to do so I just recuperated from eating too much at lunchtime. 🙂

Decor: in the office, they have covered over the rectangular fluorescent light panels with covers that picture blue sky and fluffy white clouds – VERY nice idea! At least they can pretend they can see outside.

Met another sub who graduated from EMU in December. She was supposed to graduate in May 2014 and had checked THREE times to make sure that she had met all of her requirements for graduation. But 4 weeks before she was to graduate, she was informed that she needed one more class. Fume! Outrageous! So, she didn’t graduate, took the class in the summer – then was informed – ooops, there’s ONE more! Each of these “one mores” cost $1500 or so. Not surprisingly, she is no longer planning to get her M.A. from Eastern.

Out of Montessori as a regular, so – this morning I was the Music teacher at a Plymouth Elementary School, and this afternoon I was the Phys. Ed. teacher for 6th grade at a Livonia school. It was a good day, overall, though a bit hot and tiring.

Music: I’m such a techno-phobe. The teacher actually sent me lesson plans via email last night and I thought – wow – I have to find a bunch of CDs and play them on a machine I’m not used to? So – I got there plenty early and spent the first half hour finding everything and figuring out how to use the old CD player with a carousel inside of it. The directions, as is often the case, did not give every step, but I was able to figure it out. Yay! I wasn’t concerned about leading singing, having them do songs I didn’t know, or even about letting one class play ukeleles. Only the CD player was daunting! Sigh. Believe it or not, I have learned a lot – just don’t tell me to “figure it out”. (Note: Last week at Montessori, I asked 5 staff members to get the laptop/projector working and none of them – including the male principal – could help  – finally found one teacher who knew how to do it.)

So – first class – distributed their song books, played the songs and they sang through them twice. At the end I asked for favorites and we sang two more songs. One girl asked for “Amazing Grace” which the class had not done before. I went ahead but told the class they could either sing it or sit quietly. Didn’t want to get into any public-school-dilemma. I had heard two of the kids’s songs but never sung them. I sang along as best I could with notes that move faster than I can decipher and apply them. Then they got to “God Bless America.” Okay, so I like to perform – have done this one at at least one 4th of July community event. So I sang out. It was fun seeing the looks on their faces – surprise, but also appreciation. I went up on the last note and held it firmly, long, and loud. They all broke into applause, so I did a silly bow. Then we sang it the second time, and I had them stand up and I said, “Sing it like you mean it!” and we all sang out loud and clear (okay, I was still the loudest, but it was great!)

Ukelele class – my guitar playing came in handy – first time I’ve ever held, let alone played, a ukelele. Pretty easy. Had them practice two chords and tried to play it together for awhile, then they just practiced by themselves. Pretty noisy with 30 ukeleles being randomly strummed. Clean up time – two people who were NOT asked to help put them away decided they thought they could be helpful – which led to crowding – which led to a drum set being tipped over – which led to me shouting and them all meekly sitting down quietly. Chastised the two girls and let the teachers know what happened. Not intentional, but neither were they following instructions.

First grade – played a few songs on the CD player, taught them (you guessed it) the Pizza Hut song. One girl stood stock still, didn’t smile, or sing. I wonder if she spoke English, but I didn’t ask. Very strange. Then again, perhaps she thought what we were doing was very strange, but they do songs with motions often.

2nd half: 4 classes, all the same: shuttle runs. My job was to keep everyone under control and time the two runners using two stopwatches. Overall it was fun and went well. The exception was the few clueless people who would wander out into the race area instead of going around, or ask me a question when I was timing people. “Ready, Set, Go!” I suppose I said that at least 130 times today. Must admit that a couple of times I messed up on one timer or another and estimated their results. A few of the kids took the race very seriously, trying again and again to beat their initial time. 🙂 I’m not sure what the distance was. It all reminded me of Dixon Elementary School “a few years ago” and all that Presidential Fitness Certificate stuff.

Thursday: Now, where was I? Oh, yes – the days get mixed up easily!

I had Room 4, which is – 2nd grade. Overall the day went well, although I had to send one particular disruptive student out of the classroom 3 times. I was in this room a long time ago – when they had been having substitutes a lot and their teacher was out on maternity leave. Now that she has been back for a few weeks, I noticed a BIG difference in how smoothly the day went.

It’s only Saturday, and I honestly can’t remember anything else about the day now. 😦

Friday: I was one-on-one with J again. Since it was the second time working with him, it went better – he was more responsive and we completed several assignments together. I also got to observe his teacher teaching a group lesson and she is wonderful. I told her so. What I learned from her – she has a way of reading part of a book and then acting like she really doesn’t know what the answer is to a question, and asking the class.

This classroom must want me to admit to getting older. The teacher asked all of her students to name their favorite movie, and asked the teachers’ aide and me “name your favorite movie as a kid.” Hers was “Toy Story.” Sigh. I really don’t pay attention to peoples’ age – I like spending time with any person, but now and then it sneaks up behind me and slaps me up side the head. BTW, I said “Wizard of Oz” and I was very happy that all the kids could relate to it. Whew!

I also helped the secretary for a task that took way longer than I would have thought: take two piles of papers – go to all 10 classrooms and count out enough pages for each student and ask the teachers to send them home in the kids’ Friday folders. 22-28 students per classroom – easy task, but I was shocked at how long it took. Yay, Ms. Jenny for being the most awesome school secretary around!

What a beautiful day outside! I didn’t get out much, but wow, I appreciated it when I did.

Three pieces of news: found out that the director of the school resigned a few weeks ago. Lots of negative feelings about that but I just heard it today. She was another of the many to make a mid-term exit; some of that situation has accounted for me being at Montessori for about 6 weeks straight now. However….I am officially not needed as a regular sub anymore (you may recall that being one gave me a $20/day raise as well as some very nice stability and a chance to work pretty close to home). So – next week I will be in Plymouth/Canton and Livonia on Monday and Tuesday and I don’t know where, yet, on Wednesday. Thursday I will be at Montessori, and Friday May 8 – I am flying to Seattle to spend 5 days with Amy and Kevin!

Last piece of news: the school is going back to multi-grade (or dual-grade?) classrooms next year: 1-2 grades, 2-3 grades, that sort of thing. Interesting.

Somehow I got behind here….

Monday: I started out by bouncing between classrooms, each hour helping here and there. But the sub who was working in a particular room was having a terrible day, so by noon they decided to have HER bounce around and they sent ME in there to take over, feeling that I could handle the situation. And I did. 🙂

Tuesday: I worked in a first grade room I have only assisted in before – because of that I knew that this teacher expects silence and gets it, so when the kids tried to be rowdy, I knew they were capable of more. We had a pretty good day. There weren’t complete lesson plans, but she has a system she developed where the kids are divided into 6 teams and each team rotates through work stations throughout a time period, gaining point for being quiet and on task. There was a lot of re-direction and shushing, but overall, it went well. I used one half hour period to give them a drawing lesson like I gave to the Kindergarteners, and it was very well received.

Wednesday: Today I was assigned to be one-on-one with J, who has a hard time staying on task. I must admit that while it is in many ways easier than managing the whole class, I find that I greatly prefer working with the whole class – or at least with small reading groups, rather than spending a whole day nudging, encouraging, and pushing one often-reluctant individual to do his work. I rather hope i don’t get that assignment again, but – I get paid either way. I offered to do the Drawing class for this second grade class – and it didn’t go quite as well – perhaps because they are a little older, or because they weren’t really used to me being the teacher. Can’t always hit a home run, I guess.
I met J. He said: “You look old. Are you okay?”
Me: “Old is okay.” (Did I really say that? )
J: “That’s okay, I like old people.”
GREAT way to start out my morning…..

Today there was a lockdown drill – but since I was downstairs in the teacher’s lounge eating lunch and nobody called down there, I was completely unaware that it happened.

Also: we had the BEST assembly ever – put on by the Redwings Education Foundation, and Kroger grocery stores and a bank. These guys were good. They had music and humor and they engaged the kids and gave out about 15 prizes and even had a teacher dressed as a goalie and kids hitting a ball with a hockey stick trying to score against her (while 5 teachers tried to score against a kid dressed as a pint-sized goalie). It was entertaining and LOUD (300 K-2nd graders cheering in a rather small gym). The point was to encourage the kids to study, be dedicated, be nice to everyone no matter what they look like, and eat healthy and exercise 60 minutes a day – in other words: the core values of our current society.

SCARY: at one point the leader told the kids that when their parents pack their lunches, they should open them up and look through them, and if they are NOT filled with healthy stuff, to say, “Hey! I need you to pack me a healthier lunch!”  I thought their wording was encouraging rudeness and disrespect, although he may have meant it just to seem humorous. Just brought to mind the whole “grab the kids” philosophy that has long been transforming our nation. 😦

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.

Gotta love a 5 year old viewpoint. It started to snow on Wednesday and the kids were very excited. One of them exclaimed, “It’s not even Christmas yet!” 🙂

Wednesday was a good day. AMA was doing Kindergarten Roundup, which means that many prospective students and their parents were visiting, and touring the building throughout the day. For us, that meant visitors coming into the room now and then, and lunch being eaten in the classroom since the gym was “busy.” Some of the visitors were surprised to see the kids doing subtraction problems. The principal’s wife was apparently among them and she mentioned to her husband that my room didn’t seem any different than the rest of them – which he passed along to me as a compliment, since I’m a sub. We did some “Earth Day” stuff and I taught them a song.

Thursday was a bit rough. They had Art and then Music and when we corraled them afterwards to do their usual work, they were not really into doing it. I think now that I should have let it be a more laid-back time. After all, they are only five years old, most of them. We did push them to be quiet and busy with their work, though.

In the afternoon, I decided to try something different. I divided them into four groups – letting several extroverted kids choose their teams. I got out the bin full of colored plastic bears (my boys will remember those from elementary school!) and directed each team to prepare a story to tell to the rest of the class. After about ten minutes, I put my denim shirt over a transparent easel to make a sort of puppet place and had each group of 4 kids take turns going behind and have their bears jump around up on top (about the height of their heads) and tell stories. The rest of the kids were the audience. Some of them were quite funny (at least to the other students, who get tickled by most anything silly) – and everyone enjoyed being a part of it. We clapped, they bowed, and rather eagerly listened to the others tell their stories too. One group (led by the aforementioned M. ) had their bears sing the Pizza Hut song. This was considered very hilarious.

I figure that there were a lot of skills that went into that half hour of time, so perhaps we’ll try it again if I’m in there much longer. Tomorrow is a half day and the teacher hopes to return on Monday, so I’ll be in a different class. I really like this bunch (although M. still managed to get on our nerves at the end of the day).

A lot of kids are getting sick – we sent home two with fevers on Wed and one today and some staff members are getting sick too. I hope I avoid it.

After learning the 3 stanzas to the Pizza Hut song (the last one was made up by a 4th grader), the Kindergarten kids suggested that we make up another verse. I took ideas and we discussed good motions to go with them and after we settled on it, we sang the new stanza. I gave them credit for writing it, and N., with shining eyes, said, “and we’re just Kindergarteners!” 🙂 [For those familiar with the song, our new stanza incorporates Tim Horton’s, Coney Island (to represent the 50 different ones around here) and Big Boy. The 3rd stanza has Subway, Long John Silver’s and Arby’s.]

I might get to stay with my favorite Kindergarten class all week! The aide was sick Monday and her daughter was sick on Tuesday, so by today I was handling the class alone – which went fine, for the most part.

There’s one girl – M. Honestly, I’m convinced she thinks she is the teacher or at least the assistant teacher. I found her yesterday cleaning off some name cards when she saw that they hadn’t been done (by the absent aide) – but she was supposed to be doing some classwork. Today she was nosing around my desk trying to find something. She drops everything at a second’s notice and flies across the room to “help” anyone she thinks is in dire need of her aide – whether they are, or not. I’m not sure where she’s at academically, but I suspect that the Kindergarten work is too easy for her. She talks fairly constantly and disrupts, and gets into everyone’s business, and frankly, I’m not quite sure what to do with her. She usually doesn’t argue – just makes a face and complies – until two minutes later when she disobeys again. Thoughts?

We keep pretty much on schedule and I have been reading them books from our house – Peter Rabbit and The Two Bad Mice (Beatrix Potter) today. I LOVE seeing them laugh and just enjoying their overall cuteness. I am glad I can help them learn a few things.