This Week At School

This will be my last "This Week At School" post until September.  

Kind of sad.

Kind of glad (hey, it means it's summer!)

Anywho, this week at school I...

Only worked 2 half days (which is actually REALLY good considering it is the last week of school)

Ate ice cream sandwiches in the staffroom with the EA's.

I had some drama classes

I sorted a ton of music on my preps.

Honestly, I didn't do much.

So enjoy some pictures instead!

Spotted this in a classroom and still have no idea why or what it is.

the kinders have some butterflies to release!

The kinders were still working their way through the alphabet.  V is for vine.  

They got 2 letters done on my watch!

You might remember square bear and rectangle cow.  Meet oval rabbit.  I didn't do this with them but spotted it in the room.

The other week at school I didn't have such a great class.  At the end of the day one of the girls gave this card to me.

painting from kindergarten!

proof that I sorted music!

Last Day

Yesterday was officially my last day of subbing for this school year!  

I don't have much to say 

except...

One of the teachers at the school I was at was retiring and I guess they were going to have some kind of party for her and the choir was going to sing this song.

Anywho, whether you are a teacher with a classroom of your own, substitute teacher, educational assistant, or principal I am sure we have all made some kind of a difference this year!

Have a fabulous summer break!

Let's get rested up for September!

or... the rest of you can I'm switching gears to part time nannying this summer.

Also, no one panic.  The blog posts will keep coming.  

I've got stories to last a life time (or at least enough to get me through the summer).

Say That Again...

So I'm subbing in a grade 1 classroom.  They are completely adorable and the day hasn't completely gone to pieces yet (sidenote: it never actually went to pieces... plus I was only there for the morning).

One of my favourite things about young kids is the way they speak.  They say things wrong and it's funny... especially when they are trying to be so serious.

The kids are in centers.  Some are playing with Lego, some Kinex, some are playing Bingo, others are playing with Play-Dough.  But the group I'm going to be talking about... they were playing Trouble.

Clearly the group was having troubles (troubles playing Trouble... come on...).  One of the kids in the group (let's call him Matthew) had the game at home and therefore knew the rules.  He seemed to think no one else in his group knew the rules and was very frustrated by this.

Matthew comes up to me telling me "There are no constructions on the back of the box or in the box but I have the game at home and I know what the constructions say" blah blah blah he details out what the "constructions" say.

I don't know.  I thought it was cute.  I thought it was adorable.  He was so mad but didn't know the word was instructions instead of constructions... I didn't even have the heart to correct him.

Sidenote:  When a child is saying something wrong I usually do correct them.  It may be cute that your 5 year old is saying something wrong but if they don't learn the proper way to say a word they might be saying the word wrong for far longer than it would be considered cute for.

This Week At School

This week at school...

I finally had a day off!

I went in to sub for one of my friends from university.

I spent my last full day in kindergarten for the year (thank goodness).

I subbed at my old elementary school!I shredded 6 garbage bags full of important documents to impress the secretaries.

We made rectangle cows in kindergarten.

and learned about the planets in grade 1.

I checked in on the class pets situation in kindergarten while I was there.  Still no butterflies,

Not only did I do a bunch of shredding but another day I spent a fair amount of time with this machine.

Game Day!  Since it's almost the end of the year we spent a lot of time playing games on Friday.  There  was a decent sized line up of kids who wanted to try to beat me at checkers... no one was successful.

Awkward Moments

They happen in everyone's life. You say something that you thought you were only thinking, you make some kind of inappropriate gesture, or maybe you are just no good at all at social cues. Whatever it is that gives way to your awkward life moments we all realize that they happen, we move on, and we fall into the same situation (and do the exact same things) at least two more times before we learn from it.

Not I though. I learned from this awkward moment the very first time.

Let me set the stage.

I'm subbing in a school I have never been in before. The teaching staff I notice right away is a little odd. I can't quite tell what it is... they just seem weird.

But I'm there for the morning and a weird staff is not the end of the world.

So I get to my classroom (it's kindergarten), read the plan for the morning, and get ready to greet my class.

The class is lovely. Just a bunch of rosy cheeked five year olds ready to learn.

It's obviously calendar time which goes as smoothly as calendar time normally does and then it turns into story time.

"No problem" I think. I pre picked my book and we are ready to go. I confidentially show the students the book I picked to which one bright eyed keener in the front row makes an announcement

"Why aren't you wearing the book skirt?" He asks.

"Why aren't I wearing a book skirt?" I think to myself... "Why would I be wearing one?"

The kid is already on his feet showing me a skirt which is more of a long bottom half of an apron (so basically a skirt that ties in the back). He is telling me that I'm to wear it so that they can find the book.

I'm still perplexed. I found the book. It is right here.

Then the kids explain to me that their regular teacher normally puts on the skirt, hides a book in one of the pockets in the skirt (there are about 10 sewn randomly throughout it) and then picks a student to find the hidden book in one of the pockets.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa" I think to myself. I just don't feel comfortable with tiny hands going through my pockets (or big or medium sized hands for that matter). We only just met... usually you at least have to buy me dinner first.

I'm making up so many excuses as to why I can't wear the skirt "it won't fit, I'm allergic to skirts, I wouldn't want to take this thing away from your teacher... she is probably just so good at it I could never do it as well as her". My head is spinning and before I know it the kids have coerced me into the skirt and we have hidden the book in one of the pockets.

Then before I even know what is happening one of the kids is checking each of the pockets in search of the book.

It was weird. My personal space definitely got invaded that morning. Who teaches innocent five year olds to go through a strangers pockets?

The good news is perhaps that I learned my lesson. I never (EVER) went back to that classroom or that school again.

And perhaps a little tip...

FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING DO NOT TEACH YOUR STUDENTS TO GO THROUGH OTHERS POCKETS!

This Week At School

This week at school I...

subbed in 2 new to me schools.

still have not had a day off!

had one terrible day.

subbed everything from kindergarten - grade 8.

Enjoy some pictures from my week at school!

These are caterpillars that I found in my kindergarten classroom.  Yuck.
Not the classroom pets I would want.

I guess once the caterpillars start to form a chrysalis they transfer them into these containers.  They will then release them when they turn into butterflies.  I'm assuming when I'm back in this classroom this week (and next) there will be butterflies.  Not looking forward to having to answer all the questions about if the butterflies are bleeding.  That's right, I Christine, do not even like butterflies as classroom pets. 

Caterpillars and butterflies are quite the theme right now.  This was some work from a multiage class I taught in.  They were making flip books on the different stages animals go through.

I've been getting a lot of dandelions lately.  Then one kid brought me in some rocks "I picked the prettiest ones for you Miss Penner"  Thanks.

We also made some square bears in kindergarten!  I told them not to colour them... so one child took that to mean to colour the bears eyes... looks like he has a black eye.  Another child decided to make hers a princess (not sure what the yellow spot on the forehead is though).

Celebrity Status

Sure, as a substitute teacher you are bound to get noticed every so often (luckily for me I do not live in the area that I do most of my substitute teaching... heck even when I did live in the area I did most of my teaching I didn't recognize any of the kids in the area).

Anywho, yes, you will get noticed.

Yes, you will feel like a rock star.

But how many of you can say you signed a student's crutches?

I'm assuming you are all saying "oh, not me, I've never done that"

And so to all of you I say "exactly".

I must admit I really wanted to be cool enough to sign the kids cast. The entire morning I was like "Oh I hope Shilo asks me to sign his cast" and then at noon when he crutched his way up to me with his crutches already covered in about 20 other teachers autographs asking me if I would add my signature to them I was over the moon.

You see, I don't really know for certain but I'm pretty sure you don't ask someone you hate to sign your crutches. The kid thought I was awesome.

What's even better is that I'm the only sub on his crutches. I told him that he would always remember me as the most fantastic sub ever and for the rest of the day instead of calling me Miss Penner he called me his favourite sub.

Aww...

His cast will come off in a couple of weeks and I'm assuming it will be tossed in the trash along with all those well wishes... he will have his crutches (potentially) for forever.

Now... having said all of this I feel obligated to send out a warning. Don't just sign kids things willy nilly. You might get in trouble for signing their bike, binder, or forehead. This particular kid was old enough to know that it was ok for people to sign them AND multiple other teachers had thought nothing of it to go ahead and scrawl their name on them. Yes, I likely could have gotten in a bit of trouble. No, I do not know what his parents thought of his crutches when he got home that afternoon. But I like to live life on the edge... the edge being signing things you maybe shouldn't be... I'm basically a daredevil over here.

This Week At School

This week at school I worked every day!... I'm really on a roll

This week at school I unknowingly accepted a sub day in phys-ed (it wasn't terrible).

This week at school I did both elementary and middle school.
This week at school I did French Immersion!

And... here are some photos from my week at school

I've been rocking the fishtale braid whenever I feel like my hair isn't nice enough to wear down (so I've been doing it a lot).  Anywho, I've gotten so many compliments on my hair lately... I'm having second thoughts about chopping it all off.

I've been subbing in art!  About a week ago the students were working on forming their clay tiles.

This week when I returned they were in the process of glazing them!

Also, from art class.  The kids were using water colour pencils to create Victorian style homes.

I went in for a friend this week and this is how she keeps her students in line!  I must admit (for most of them) it worked wonderfully... AND the students were the ones reminding me of it!

I had a couple of preps one day and put up a bulletin board for a teacher.  It's supposed to look like a quilt.

We watched a couple of social studies videos in french immersion... I had to write their exit slip out in French!

I had some class pets this week!  Nothing exciting happened with these little frogs... at least nothing compared to this or this.

The Day Everyone Cried

... Except me... I was just about the only one who held it together this day.

I'm subbing in a grade 3/4 class. Things are going just dandy and the kids obviously love me and then recess happens.

I may never know exactly the events that transpired over the recess break but I sure did hear about it afterwards.

Everyone comes into the classroom and we sit down and are just about settled and ready for me to read them part of their read aloud when all of a sudden one child has an issue and starts crying.

What the...

After talking with her I see that I am clearly not helping the issue and am not even clear on what happened and so I figured one of her peers can probably (maybe) get to the bottom of this a lot faster than I can so I send her out to the hall with one of her friends to help her settle down and talk things out.

Big mistake.

The hallway.

It's the holy grail of the school.

Everyone and their mom wants to spend time out in the hallway so long as they are not in trouble.

So I begin reading the chapter they are on when all of a sudden another student bursts into tears.

What the...

Once again I try to settle the student down but have no success.

Well... 4 students in the hall is alright I figure... 4 students is not too many. So I send 2 more students out into the hall with the same instructions. Except I tell them they need to be back into the classroom within 5 minutes.

So off they go and back to reading the rest of the class goes.

Things are looking up and we have read about 2 pages but then... we have another crier folks.

At this point I'm so unsure what is going on and why everyone is crying.

I have no idea what to do now. The kid won't stop crying and blabbering on and on about something that happened at recess but I already have 4 students in the hallway!

Alright, I tell them, send the first pair back in and then you can stay out there.

Apparently they took this to mean just go outside and now that there are 6 of you out there you may as well have a party.

In walks the teacher from across the hall.

Sees that I'm just a poor unsuspecting substitute yells at all of them for taking advantage of me. Tells them they are all fine.

Basically, sit down, shut up, and listen to the story.

Apparently that was all they needed to calm down. Granted, I'm assuming she was their most hated teacher and therefore the scariest one as well.

Sidenote: I would like to think that I am generally a pretty good substitute teacher. We all have our off days but to be honest... I didn't think this particular day was one of those. I just had no idea how to deal with all the criers. I feel that it's not my place to yell and shout at the kids (until I get really mad or they aren't listening) but they were being good... just a bunch of unresolved issues from recess (perhaps the day, week, or year before as well).

This Week at School

This week at school I subbed every day (Huzzah)!

This week at school I subbed a morning in kindergarten and an afternoon in grade 8 art (on the same day).

This week at school we had a tornado drill!

This week at school I subbed in a 1/2/3 split classroom (not the same one as last week though).

This week at school I collected a bunch of art work from my students.

Speaking of art work....

Here we have a picture of some kids playing on roofs

 The girl who drew this loved me (especially my hair).  

Is the picture on the left of a person without a head?

 This is a fairly accurate drawing of what I looked like this day.  I was wearing a black dress and red shoes.  She even asked what colour my eyes were!... but I guess I was looking a little out of it which is why my eyeballs are staring at the ceiling.

Painting from kindergarten