They Were Too Smart For My Own Good…

I subbed a 6^th grade class the week before the last day of school. As a class they were really good natured and very smart.

They had a full day of work assignments and even a test on the anatomy of the human body. They had to identify the location and spelling of some of the 206 bones in the human skeleton.

That and the other daily assignments convinced me that there would be little if any idle time for them to get bored and restless.

As it turned out, most of the class completed all the work with oodles of time left. I broke out my standby activity for the early finishers: The Night Watchman Maze.

By the time the rest of the class completed their classroom assignments, they joined up in teams to see which team would solve the puzzle first.

Frustrated team member: What’s this thing called again?

Me: The Night Watchman Maze

I didn’t think anything more about the inquirer as he returned to his team at the back of the room until later. I saw that the “team” members were crowded around one of the classroom computers.

While my blog isn’t exactly anonymous, I know of only one teacher who has discovered its existence so far. There may be more but if so, they haven’t told me they read or even know about it.

All that changed in one afternoon. There on the computer screen is a familiar looking "book shelf"  Blogger template

Kids: Hey! Mr. Homework! You’re on the internet! We Googled “night watchman maze" and found this!

What else could I say? -- I lied:  

Me: No, that’s not me. It must be someone else…someone with the same name.

Kids: No, no…Isn’t that your picture right there!

Me: Hey, It’s time to go out for some P.E.

Who wants to play some NationBall?   

If you don’t know what NationBall is, I’m sure you can Google it and find out. It seems like ALL the answers are on the internet….

Young Adults…

I intended to take the day off yesterday. After six straight classes of 5th grade children, I needed a break.

Anticipating a very long weekend until my next scheduled assignment on Wednesday, I declined calls on Friday, Saturday and Sunday to take classes for Monday and Tuesday mornings. After all, being around children constantly can drive a person a bit batty. Just ask any mother of 2 or more school age kids.

Then Sunday night I got a request to sub Monday at one of the three schools in the district I hate to turn down. I hesitate to turn them down because they don’t call that often. More importantly, the quality of student, in general, tends to be more…well…how should I politely say this?...”mature” is an apt description.

There you have it; I passed on several offers to substitute children in favor of one class of young adults the same age.

Now, if only some of the adults I have to interact with wouldn’t act like children most of the time, life would be good!!

Wanted...

Since I last checked in about those last two, trying, terrible, 6th grade classes, I filled out this last week with 3rd graders once, two 5th grade classes, one really odd day with 4th graders and today with 2nd graders.

Because I hadn’t subbed for the 3rd grade teacher before, she was a little worried about turning her class over to me. An office staff recommendation went a long way to reassure her that I wouldn’t damage her kids too much.

She had left me detailed plans, notes, and extra work if needed (I didn’t). Her class was terrific, I had a good time with them and I left a good report. I encountered her in the teachers lounge yesterday and she was telling me how much the kids liked me.

“They even drew a red heart around where you wrote your name on the board!!”. Are you available for next Friday? They have a field trip to the Winchester Mystery House and I’ve seen it so many times and all those stairs are tiring!

Before I could answer, a teacher I had already arranged an assignment with on the same date spoke up: “He’s mine! I reserved him two weeks ago!”

It’s nice to be wanted, but the field trip sounded much more fun than 5th graders…

Light Payday for January…

G3

Friday was the last day of the pay period for the month of January. I was fortunate to pick up two days in the same 3^rd grade class this last week. I say “fortunate” because it tripled my paycheck for the month.

For the entire month, I picked up only three classes subbing. Not quite enough to cover the medical insurance payment for January.

Oh, that’s another other bit of good news for us. We finally have medical insurance again as of Jan/1!

After dumping our previous “we deny all claims” carrier, Crap Assed National, Inc., we reapplied to the big “Blue” carriers. We were subsequently “declined” by Blue Cross and ignored for a few months by Blue Shield.

We then applied and were successfully accepted by Kaiser Permanente. (…Blue Shield finally responded a month later, but by then it was too late to consider them.)

But, back to class:

Third graders are great! They still like school and want to do work. They still tattle a little but they are gradually moving out of that phase.

They are a lot of fun to be around, even if I have to confiscate the occasional improvised blow gun made from a ballpoint pen sleeve and pen cartridge.

“Blow gun” duly noted and taped to the substitute teacher “End of Day” report…

Surprising Talent…

I’ve had only three assignments these last two weeks in grades 3, 4 and 5. All at the same school.

The following note (front & back) was done on a folded index card with fine line pens and a lot of talent. Even with the spelling goof, I think it is better than excellent work…for a 5^th grader.

Whattya think?

(Click on the image for larger view)

Substitute Vacation …

I haven’t posted anything about school since last week because, quite frankly, the three 5^th grade classes I had on Monday, Tues and Friday didn’t provide any problems, illnesses, tribulations, vexations or funniness that would make for interesting reading.

It then struck me that I should say when things DO go as expected otherwise it’s like the national news that report only the bad, catastrophic stuff.

Sooo…Last week was like a vacation. The kids in all three classes at two different schools were excellent and fun to be with. I had a great time.

Kind of like a sunny vacation before the unseen storm brewing over the horizon makes landfall…

Mindset...

EG13-G3

I haven’t been working for most of the week. In fact this was the first assignment call I accepted this week.

Instead, I spend a couple of days trying to extract my lungs and some parts of internal organs from one of two body orifices and occasionally both at the same time. A stomach flu will have that affect sometimes. A couple of more days to recover and I’m good to go.

The district SubFinder system called Thursday night for a 5^th grade assignment at a school I been to frequently this year.

I arrived at the appointed time and was given a key to a room not in the usual block of 5^th grade classrooms. Curious because I know they group the grade levels together.

On entering the classroom, I notice the desks are arranged in groups of four. Again, for some reason, it struck me as odd for 5^th grade. The room, somehow, didn’t “look” like a 5^th either.

It wasn’t until I counted the pods of “groupings of four” desks that I realized that this couldn’t be a 5^th grade class. There were only 20 desks where there should be something like 30.

It was only then I checked the class attendance list and saw this was, indeed, a 3^rd grade classroom.

Without realizing it, I had a mindset going in ready to deal with 5^th graders today and was temporarily disoriented to find I had to adjust for 3^rd graders. That hasn’t happened before.

It seems that this teacher taught 5^th grade last year, changed to 3^rd this year and the system hadn’t been updated yet.

Resetting the mindset for 3^rd grade wasn’t really a problem, just a mild suprise. Third graders are a fun trip. I had one of the best “problem free” and “stress free” classes I have had all year.

Tooth Fairy Inflation...

EG5-G3

Lots of substitute call activity this morning:

1) 05:50 I missed this first call. By the time I fumbled the phone off the hook and realized the phone was switched to the second line, the answering machine downstairs had taken a message and sub system had hung up..

2) 06:30 First grade class assignment would have been “ok” except the teacher attempted to leave a verbal sub plan on the special instructions part of the recording which included the first three digits of her cell phone number to contact her if I needed anything before the sub line recording cut the rest of it off. I interpret this to mean there is no written lesson plan available today. Pass.

3) 06:40 Call from my shit listed school. Hang up before even finding out what class assignment it was.

4) 07:10 Duplicate call for #2. Evidentially all the other subs turned down the “audio lesson plan” teacher and the system had run through the entire sub list without any takers. Pass for a second time.

5) 07:30 Call for the same school as call #2 and #4 but for grade 3 starting at 08:00am. Does this indicate an attempt for a “bait-n-switch”? Show up for grade three and get the phoned in lesson plan grade 1 assignment?

So today after passing on the first four calls of the morning, I had a great day with this third grade class. The only thing of blog worthiness was the dark haired girl in the front with a loose tooth giving me hourly updates on its attachment status. She finally pushed it loose toward the end of class.

I asked what the going rate for tooth fairy collections was; she told me it was $5 !! This was a shocker. I was expecting maybe fifty cents.

I took an informal poll with the rest of the kids asking what the going rate was at their house.

A good number of kids informed me that they get $10/per!! Others informed me that they get $20/per if it’s a “silver tooth”!!

This last rate coming from kids whose dental work seems to have been done outside the U.S. as I don’t think silver caps are done here anymore.

Most of the kids verified that $1 was the median going rate for dental exchange in their home.

This must have a shocker of a news bulletin for the one little girl who told me she only gets twenty-five cents.

If They Could All Be Like This One…

Today, I subbed for Ms. G’s 4^th/5^th combo class. The teacher’s lesson plan had notes to “be firm” next to a list of “helpful” and “handful” kids.

With this game plan in hand, I greeted the kids with an opening announcement.

“Today, we have a 500 word essay due”.

Surprised looks! Dropped jaws! Moans of incredulity!

I went silent for five beats before looking down at the lesson plan, pretending to turn it around, then announced with a grin.

“Oops, I had it upside down. No essay. Instead, we have kickball for P.E...”

Twenty eight simultaneous sighs of relief mixed with cheers started one of the best days I’ve ever had subbing.

These kids were helpful, responsive, respectful, bright, attentive, and easy to communicate with. Their teacher should be commended for molding such a great group of kids that actually want to be in the classroom.

The day went according to plan with no hitches or glitches. I left a glowing report for Ms. G. about her class.

If ALL classes were as good as this one, I’d have nothing interesting/funny to blog about.

…And I didn’t have to sing!

No Plan...

Yesterdays Assignment: 4th grade (30 students) local country club school.

Tuesday, 4th grade assignment, stormy weather like last Tuesday and NO LESSON PLAN. OMG! It’s deja vu all over again from a week ago!!!


I called the office to ask if there is a special place the lesson plan might be located, wishing like hell this wasn’t going to be a repeat of last Tue.

The office called the teacher at home and hooked us up. She said the “general plan” was in the plan date book and that the kids all knew what/when to do stuff.

With crossed fingers and a little prayer, I met the incoming class at the door.

Sure enough, I was more of a “conductor” instead of a “teacher”. One kid took the role, a second did the homework check and 2-3 of the girls guided me to the location of the teacher’s books for the lessons to be done.

The work day pretty much petered out about 45 mins before the end of class and the noise level started to get out of hand.

I decided to try the “guess my old job” exercise that worked so well with last weeks 6th grade class.

Surprisingly they all got into it with the pretty much the same list as the 6th grade. One kid floored me with “I think you worked for Applied Materials, am I right?”

Busted!!!

I couldn’t figure out how this kid knew where I had worked, so I asked her how she came to that conclusion.

She had spotted the logo on the pen in my shirt pocket with the stylized company logo of an “A” on the clip. These country club kids are pretty sharp to spot that logo AND know the company name it goes with it.

She then rattled off several names of people she knew that, evidentially, work for her Dad and sell stuff to Applied.

Gotta stay on my toes around these kids.