End of the Month

To end of October, I got a half day kindergarten job and a cold.

If I'm doing kindie, I'd rather do a morning than an afternoon, especially if the ECE is not there too (in Ontario, full day kindergarten has a teacher and an ECE if there are more than 15 kids). This job was for the afternoon, the day before Hallowe'en. I got to the school and made my way to the office. It's an older school, built in the days when everyone walked, including probably much of the staff (or, at least, there were fewer staff in the schools). The layout was a bit strange but I found the room.

And oh boy. It had obviously been a kindie room for a long time. A well used room. I found the teacher's desk, and all I could find was a note for the ECE. Great, I'm going to have  a supply ECE. There was some vague notes as to what the kids would be doing. ICE time mainly. I have seen this "ICE Time/centres" a few times and don't know what it means. Google hasn't helped. I think it might mean "Independent Creative Exploration". The centres were mainly creative type things.

The teacher came in to tell me the plans. She looked like a wonderful, old school type kindie teacher. Warm and friendly and a little unorganized. They'd be doing things like scooping out the guts of a pumpkin and separating the seeds which they'd roast later, making pumpkin faces with Play-Do, colouring, etc. At the end of the afternoon we could do Go Noodle. I didn't have an account but she said just YouTube it and pick something.

She left, and right before the bell, the supply ECE showed up. Time for the show!

The afternoon went fast enough. There was one kid who was upset most of the afternoon. It's hard when both teachers are supplies!

I got Go Noodle up on YouTube and picked a video. It started with an ad for vaginal yeast cream. Yeah. Thankfully the kids didn't notice and I quickly muted the sound. One of these days I should create my own account so I can use the actual Go Noodle website.

Afternoon dismissal is a scary thing for a supply kindie teacher/ECE. There were also other supply kindie teachers in. Some kids stay for daycare, some had to be rounded up and walked around the outside of the school to get to the buses and some had to be sent home with an adult. It's always worrisome to dismiss kindies. Sometimes we get a list of who they go to--but how can we tell for certain that it's Aunt Mary and not Aunt Jane? And with 30 kids to dismiss, it can be crazy trying to keep track of them all. Some barely speak English! And some, at this time of the year, are still three.

I still really enjoy kindergarten classes. It's tiring and non-stop, but the kids rarely yet have attitudes LOL!!