Not Enough Copies

The way your day goes when you substitute in kindergarten depends on two things: 1) how organized and well-planned the lessons are and 2) how well adjusted and socialized (and therefore, usually, how well-behaved) the kids are in the classroom.

We started the day with introductions and setting expectations so everyone was aware of consequences for poor behavior. I have been in this class before so, except for three new students, they all knew what to expect. As usual, nearly all were happy to see me. Also as usual, one kindergartener was upset that "her teacher" wasn't there, which meant some tears. She was fine, and in fact, happy, within ten minutes.

The last time I subbed in this classroom, it was a nightmare. One of the students was acting out his anger and frustration, disrupting the entire class. The poor kid's parents had divorced and he was in the middle, going back and forth between the two houses. And the 2 houses couldn't be more different. In general, Dad's house provided structure and rules, while Mom's house included a boyfriend and a lack of structure. It was all just too much for the boy and he expressed this with tantrums, throwing things, and refusing to cooperate. It was very sad for this little guy, but now that he was no longer here, everyone else in the room was better off.

Carl, formerly number two on the depth chart, was now the number one mischief maker. He requires closer supervision to keep him from getting too physical with others or getting off-task. He was responsible for the only "incident" of the pre-recess morning. Carl's group was with me and we were working on journal writing. The students were to write: "I like to play..." and complete the sentence. Ideally, they will add another sentence of elaboration. We brainstormed what they could write to finish the sentence. Some of the ideas included soccer, baseball, freeze tag, with my friends, horses, bingo, with my tarrantula, and Xbox.

Carl seconded the bingo idea by saying, "Bingo Fart." Of course this was hilarious to the 5 and 6 year olds.

I had Carl "move his clip" down which meant he would lose 5 minutes of recess. He would get to move this up if he behaved the rest of the morning, which he did.

Lesson plans in Kindergarten need to be pretty specific and timed well so they last for close to the amount of time alotted. If a lesson is shorter it's always nice if the teacher has left something extra to do. If it runs long it's very possible that this will affect the next thing on the schedule. Sometimes that thing is not something you can be flexible on...like leaving for lunch or rotating between classrooms.

The last lesson of the morning was with a group of students whose first language is Spanish. 14 of the 16 students for this English Language Development group came from the other kindergarten classes so we did some introductions first. The lesson was on the parts of a plant (flower, leaf, stem, roots). One student said, "That's an F-word."

"You are right... Flower!"

After we learned the parts together, they were to take a photocopy of a plant that was divided into quarters. Each section of the paper had either the roots, the flower, or the stem and leaves. The kids were to cut out the 4 pieces assemble in a vertical sequence, and glue them onto paper.

I was about to do a quick demonstration but as I grabbed the stack of papers I noticed how thin it was. Uh-oh! I counted the papers to find 13 sheets. Not enough copies! Not only could I not afford to do a complete demonstration that would also give them an example to immitate, I would not have enough for each student. I passed out what papers I had and attempted to quickly sketch 3 more. Big mistake! By the time I finished, nearly everyone, more or less unsupervised, was busy doing the wrong thing as they tried to cut and assemble the flower.

Not only that, instead of the 35 minutes I thought I had, I only had about 28 minutes because of the switching back to home classrooms to get ready for lunch. So the last few minutes were a whirlwind of activity to clean up, collect unfinished papers, and lineup to go. The kids I had with me had to leave with the other classes to get their hot lunches because I needed to remain behind and supervise the kids that brought there lunch until the noon supervisor arrived.

The lesson turned out ending in disaster. The timing was wrong, the material provided was inadequate, and the lesson itself that the teacher left fell short of being adequate. My one regret in the whole thing was making the wrong decision by continuing with the lesson as it was layed out. In hindsight I should have changed things up, perhaps doing the activity whole group.

So it goes sometimes.