Waffles Radio Because if you don’t let off steam you’ll explode

Day 65 – 1st Grade

First graders are so easy to listen to everything you say, they mostly follow directions, they are still excited about going to school.  Best of all is their surprise when they have a boy for a teacher.  it really shouldn’t be that big of a deal, but it is.  Which is just fine with me because it usually means all have a very easy day behavior wise.

Today was no different.  The worst part of the day was that I  talked to another teacher during my break and didn’t get a chance to read my book.

Day 62 – 2nd Grade

This group was insanely self-sufficient.  They checked homework.  They did attendance, they did everything all by themselves.  Probably didn’t even need to be there.

This class didn’t even write in the weekly reader they use for some of their work.  I’ve had middle schoolers but didn’t understand the concept of using their own paper.

Of course, they did freak out when they saw the teacher for the day was a boy.

Day 61 – 5th Grade

Once in a while I get a class that I’m sure the teacher just loves but the environment she created is so far off from what I’d want that it’s hard to deal with.  Sometimes it’s one where the kids seem to get away with a lot¹, but most of the time it’s an elementary school where the kids don’t even try to talk while doing their work.  This was one of those days.

The worst behaved kid was reading while he should’ve been doing other work.  Reading, how terrible.  I wish that was my biggest problem everyday.

The best part of the day was that the kids had clubs or something similar at the end of the day.  I asked another teacher what we can do about dismissing since I’m not allowed to do any afterschool duty or be responsible for where  the kids end up.  She looked like she was going to freak out about that.  Then she remembered about the clubs.  The kids got dismissed from there and I didn’t have a club.  End of the day break time for me.

1. My guess when a class is really terrible. [↩]

Day 60 – 5th Grade

This was another late start day, but because the weather this time.  The beginning of the day would have been rather boring¹, but I asked another teacher, and we decided that the best plan was to just go with everything at the regularly scheduled time.

Figuring out the problem was the worst part of the day.  While we were in class they worked.  I’d had them before so I wasn’t surprised at all.

The only other issue was hearing the other classes complain during lunch about how we went outside and they didn’t.  We probably shouldn’t have either.  But they all wanted to, and they all had appropriate clothing.

1. Language Arts again and I think I you know how I feel about that. [↩]

Day 58 – 4th Grade

Maybe I’m just lucky, but subbing in fourth grade is really easy.  The kids are still acting like elementary schoolers and doing their work without question¹ .  I haven’t really had any big behavior problems beyond tattle tales, and while that’s really annoying it’s something that I don’t have to put much effort into controlling.

I know I don’t want to teach elementary school when I start teaching for real, but as far as subbing goes it’s really hard to beat.

1. Fifth graders are hit and miss on that. [↩]

Day 55 – 4th Grade

This was your standard day in 4th grade.  The kids did their work and I didn’t even have to threaten anybody with their class’s form of punishment.  The kids were surprised to have a boy as a teacher.  The teacher left things that the kids thought was what they’d been doing if she was there, but I think was stuff the kids would never have seen if the teacher was there.

There isn’t really much to say.

Day 52 – 3rd Grade

This was a return to my 3rd day of subbing.  They weren’t quite as well behaved this time.  But it was in a “we’re excited that you’re here and want to talk the entire time while we get our work done” kind of way.  I can live with that, especially since I probably wasn’t as professional as I should have been with them either. They also knew I was coming.  I’m sure that didn’t help either.

The worst part of this day was that the sub they’d had the day before didn’t have time to finish the pre-test they had to take so I had to fit that in too.  So really I guess that’s two bad things since I hadn’t made sure this teacher had my phone number and she had to get someone else for the day before me due to needing someone at the last minute.

Day 51 – 5th Grade

This was at one of my favorite schools.  I really don’t think the kids at this school know how to misbehave.  In fact, the worst thing that happened was that a kid in a different class saw me in the hall and wanted to leave her class to go talk to me.  I’d say that’s a good day.

Day 50 – Kindergarten

It seems oddly fitting that on a milestone day for me things would be crazy.  Today’s crazy stuff actually started in December when I picked up the job.  It was set for 2 days, with the second being a teacher work day.  I don’t work on those days, so I should have known something weird was going on.

I figured it was just someone being trigger happy when putting in the days, not really a big deal.  I got into the room and the teacher showed up though.  She was as confused as I was, and left to get some things done and to see what was going on.  While she was gone the assistant came in and thought that maybe the teacher was there to get a few things done and would be leaving.

Meanwhile at the room next door the teacher was double jealous.  Not only was this other class getting a boy as a sub, she wasn’t going to get one for some reason.  Maybe it had to do with the fact that she had a student in there who needed a shadow and the school figured that would be good enough.  Except that the shadow person that day was also a sub.  Weird.

Thankfully for me the school decided that since I was there I could just go over to this other teacher’s class and sub there instead.  Once the day started it was normal kindergarten.

Well, as normal as kindergarten gets when the teddy bears spent the night and didn’t stay in the kid’s cubbies like they were supposed to.  Those bears were the worst behaved things I saw all day.  Which is just fine with me.

Day 48 – 3rd Grade

You know those days where the kids all behave and the teachers leave you good lesson plans that don’t make you feel like you’re stretching everything out just to use up time?  I love those days, this was one of them.

The only problem all day was that there was a new student in the class.  I’ve had new kids before, but the other time the new kids just transferred classes from within the school.  This new kid was from another state.

Which wouldn’t have been a problem at all except the lesson plans left by the teacher mostly consisted of “Work on X.  They should have everything for this already.”  And that isn’t the teacher’s fault at all.  Someone from the office came into all the classes and counted to see where this kid would go.  I can’t expect a teacher to know about a new student when the office people don’t know what class the kid will be in.