Monday, April 24, 2023
I was excited to go back to kindergarten this morning. Elementary schools were off for a workshop day, so they had had me the last time they were at school. The paraprofessional who had helped me do everything on Thursday was going to be gone, but she assured me she had a good sub. I wasn’t worried.
And I have been doing this long enough to know that that’s when I should worry. I was only scheduled for a half day. I read the sub note, which looked the same to me as Thursday except media instead of art. I showed it to the para when she arrived. On Thursday, the para had set out the materials for our morning stations. I had no idea where any of it had come from. Today’s para and I walked all around, peeking into bins and looking for worksheets. We found a couple things and discussed what would go where and we were settled.
We had just started our rotation when the regular teacher arrived back from his meeting early.
“What are you doing?”
It kind of boomed across the room. He has a big voice.
“Um. Stations? I just followed what we did on Thursday with the new worksheets.”
He pointed at a list on the board.
MWF
Purple Seesaw
Flag PW
Green Letter
Blue Reading
TTh
Purple PW
Flag Seesaw
Completely meaningless to me, and more importantly completely unnoticed by me. There was a different list of cryptic activities on the sub note. He told me they do different things depending on the day of the week. Darn. I apologized and said we were only 5 minutes in of the hour activity and we could certainly switch it up. He said it was fine, and that the para would catch everyone who was doing the wrong thing up tomorrow. That didn’t sound good, but he insisted that it was fine.
Then he said, “What are you doing?” seven more times during the 40 minutes before I left.
I think I failed kindergarten. I had gotten books out of yellow and green bins, but the wrong yellow and green bins. I had kids working in a folder who had to stop to go to a specialist. I kinda thought everything was okay, since all the kids were doing something and no one was crying. He really didn’t agree. He said thanks for coming, without adding don’t come back, but it was implied. Ouch, but oh well.
So, I went to Sam’s Club because Daniel and Amanda were coming over for pizza-oven pizza. I got supplies, then went to Cub for a requested topping of green pepper (I did not buy the package of six green peppers at Sam’s, because I do not like green peppers and extras would not be a good thing). As I spun through the Aldi parking lot (it’s how you get to Cub), I thought, “Look! I am in a grocery store parking lot. Stop. Go in,” and I did. Look at me just changing up the plan. I went in. At Aldi you have to buy a package of three green peppers. I went to Cub. My green pepper is kinda sad looking, but it was as good as it got.
The pizza was good; we played games and Daniel and Amanda finished the evening with a visit to the hot tub. We were certainly not waiting for the weekend to have fun 🙂
Apparently I don’t speak kindergarten either because that list is meaningless to me as well.
Oh my goodness, there could be an escape from kindergarten room. We would have to break the code!
I just wouldn’t WANT to sub for that guy ever again. In this day and time anyone in a classroom anywhere should be kissing the feet of anyone who will substitute – let alone the best substitute teacher in the world. I hereby place this guy on the black list. (Not the one on TV, though).
I can’t say I ever want to do a half day for him – because then he will apparently ask “What are you doing?” often, but I could go back for a full day.
I just read the Black List is in its final season. We watched faithfully until during the pandemic there were several episodes at the end of one season that weren’t yet on streaming when the new episodes arrived. We waited and checked for several weeks, then forgot about it. We have several seasons to watch now.
Your recent experiences have me wondering: Don’t industrial arts teachers and kindergarten teachers have to make lesson plans? Besides encrypted ones, I mean.
I definitely had a list of crypticness on the lesson plan (which definitely impacted my not looking around the room for clues. I thought I had the plan). The para and I went over and over the list and tried our best to figure it out. She worked in the building until a month ago, so I think she had better ideas than I did. Anyway, it didn’t really work out.
You didn’t think “They are building towers and cars” was enough of a lesson plan?