mrs f....rizzle for a day

So I arrived early for a substitute assignment at a school that I had never been to before. I was excited to check it out since I liked the neighborhood. However, my first encounter with the office woman was not that friendly... perhaps she was having a rough morning, or maybe she's just like that. Either way, it wasn't the nicest office environment I have walked into. Checking my attendance sheet I found I would be in charge of 16 second-grade students today given that they are not absent. Sixteen, I thought, that's not so bad. I once had been given charge of a classroom of twenty-two students, so sixteen sounded great. Even still, sometimes I say a little prayer that the extra naughty children would be home sick that day. *sheepish grin* Is that evil?

Once I got to the classroom and turned on the lights I took a glance around the room looking for the teacher's desk. The room was freezing! My husband's theory of why they keep the schools so cold is to kill the germs. He may have something there. I immediately walked over to the AC and turned if off for the time being. After I reached the teacher's desk I began looking for her sub plans. There they were right in front of me... All on one piece of paper....

• 8-8:20 -- Morning Routine
• 8:20 -- Gather children on carpet, distribute class tie-dye shirts, go over your field trip expectations/let them use the bathroom
• 8:45 -- have children out by bus...
• 11:50 -- lunch
• 12:25 -- recess
• 1 -- ...
  

ok, at this point I'm like... FIELD TRIP!? WHAT?! a field trip... where are we going? It didn't say. And MY field trip expectations... how about you tell me YOURS teacher... iyah!

Looking up from the desk I saw an early-bird student come in the classroom. He was a large boy for 2nd grade. I greeted him and he looked at me with surprise then got down on all four limbs and darted under a table. I walked over to where he was and he was like, 'Ms. we have roaches.' I looked and saw on the floor two belly-upped cockroaches. He saw my disgust and told me 'It's o.k. Ms. I'm floor monitor.' I totally chuckled on the inside because he was very serious. But then I heard him get all 'ewghy' about it. I asked him if he was going to use his shoe to make sure it was dead. 'NO WAY Ms. These shoes are new!'

Ok, so back to the field trip... Beginning around 7:35 students were filing into the classroom. Eventually some parent helpers showed up and told me that we were going to the Austin Symphony Halloween concert. SWEET! (all except the Halloween part)... After checking the students for their homework, reading logs, and journals as they worked on the math problem written on the wipe board, We gathered at the carpet. I still I was a bit scared. Sitting at the carpet I didn't know these kids' faces and names, so I quickly had them put on their matching tie-dye shirts. There was even one for me. We then went over MY field trip expectations. What were they again? I think they came out some thing like this.

1. Stick together.
2. Stay with your buddy.
3. Stay in line order at all times.
4. Be respectful: Clapping only during applause.
5. No screaming or talking during the show.
6. Use the bathroom here, not there (now, not later).
   

It wasn't until we were sitting on the bus waiting for some other students from the school that I decided that one parent volunteer would watch over two sets of buddies. I quickly divided up the parent volunteers... so all I had to do was manage the group as a whole. *phew!* All students accounted for... let's go!

Arriving at the event center there were tons of buses and even more children. Some schools had all the same t-shirts, our school had a different tie-dye combination/design per classroom. We got lots of complements regarding our t-shirts. The event center volunteers were all dressed for Halloween. There was a clown, a ghost, and there were ones wearing every piece of holiday apparel known. Very tacky.

The main part of the concert was a reading of Peter and the Wolf. Here are a few photos from it.

We made it through the whole thing without any terrible things happening. I only had one girl who had to pee-soooo-bad... so I sent a parent to the restroom with her during the concert. We met up with out bus to ride back to the school, arriving late for lunch in the cafeteria, so we ate our lunch in the classroom, had indoor recess, story-time, Special areas, then dismissal.

All in all, the whole day was quite a success. Not that hard at all. But truly not one to forget.

Since this experience I have subbed for this very same 2nd grade classroom four times. While there's usually a roach to be found at the start of the day still each time brings something new. Like receiving a very concerned note sprawled across a full page of paper from one of the girls... in bright red marker (spelling error included):

To: Mrs. F.
From: Caitlyn

OBAMA
VOTE
FORE
OBAMA