Back to Elementary School

It's been a while since I've done any subbing at an elementary school, with my kindergarten day as the one exception.  Yesterday I was an 8th grade math teacher and the kids were pretty much fine all day.  I was busy after school and didn't get a chance to post.  It wasn't an eventful day so I don't feel it warrants a full write-up.  There are always annoying 8th graders (they're at the top of their game in school, the oldest until they get to high school) and I dealt with them.

Today I was a fifth grade teacher and I had the kids for language arts, science, and social studies (they went next door for math).  It's hard to teach the elementary ages.  They need a lot more guidance and even though these kids were really helpful I was still overwhelmed with the details of the day.  There are a lot of hour-long subjects and I have the same kids all day, which is both good and bad.  I almost learned all of their names (good) but I was just about done with J, a boy with an attitude (bad).

There is also a lot less personal time in elementary school.  I did have a free hour while they went to gym class but I didn't have my usual lunch period and second free period like in the middle schools.  The teachers go outside for recess so I lose that precious alone time to clean up the room and write up some of my notes to the teacher.  I stayed an extra 20 minutes after today, which is really unusual when I sub in the older grades.

I finally put my prize system in place today.  I used to carry around a bag full of little plastic animals and bookmarks but I never remembered to use them so I stopped bringing it to school.  I had "Star Students" today and wrote the names of kids being really great students on the board.  They got to pick from my bag of goodies at the end of the day.  In the end, I gave every kid a prize because I don't know what I'm going to do with all of the stupid things.  They were pretty psyched.

A kid told me today, "You're a really interesting teacher".  What a funny comment!  He was smiling when he said it so I think it was a compliment.  I was letting the kids choose their colonial profession (anyone want to be a miller or cooper?) and having them tally on the board who wanted to be what.  I guess that was a cool and interesting thing to do!