What Did I Do?

The crazy continued.  I was beginning to feel that the good days I had were the abnormal ones.

I got a call for an afternoon kindie job. I get there, the kids are eating lunch. It's a very non-white class. This IS important, especially for kindie, because it can mean that a lot of the students are English Language Learners, or that there's a lot of immigration and the issues that brings for the young children.

The teacher was there and asked if I could come in for three days in December cause her regular supply was busy. I said "Sure" but it'd depend on dates because I was planning to be away until the 11th. She needed 12-14. I left my info.

This teacher was so well planned. She even had pictures of each kid and a list of who they could leave with at dismissal. Though just saying "Mom, Dad or Grandpa" is not all that helpful, having kids pictures with their name really helps. Especially when most names were not the typical white names I'm more used too. Many of these names I had never seen before.

There was a supply ECE and she showed up shortly. She'd never been here either. Oh boy.

Attendance. Fun! Trying to pronounce the names. One name I had seen before but this child pronounced it differently. Finally got it done. Tried to read a book out loud and the kids just could not keep themselves together and quiet. Then it was centers time. Centers are my favourite thing about kindies. It was going better.

Then it was recess. Okay, I like recess too. There were many low functioning kids in this class though. Like, stare at the sky. Do they understand English? Were they even speaking English? Surely by the middle of November they'd know the routine to go outside.

Just before going outside, we found out there was an extended recess and the kids could go out on the field with the big kids, for a reward for fundraising. Ummmm. How am I going to round up 30 kids I don't know? There were other kindie classes, but some of them had supplies too. And this was messing up our break times. And there was an ASD student returning to the classroom and the ECE was needed for him, for a diaper change. And then a girl got hurt. One had a meltdown. And  then...

I couldn't figure out what the kid needed at first. Was it in English? Finally he said "poop". Okay, gotcha. I sent him in to the bathroom. I went to check on him in a few minutes and he said "Big poop". He was on the toilet so I said to finish up. He said "Big poop". Okay, finish your big poop. Then I saw it.

A big poop. In his pants on the floor. Yup.

Teachers are not supposed to deal with bathroom incidents or bodily fluids. ECEs are, because they have the training. But what was I supposed to do? I didn't even know where the ECE was. I picked up the pants, dropped the turd in the toilet, found a bag, found his backpack (I couldn't even figure out his name!) and got him changed.

We got the kids rounded up from their extended recess. Now, they needed snack. It should have been centers again, but snack is important! Messy, messy kids. We couldn't quite figure out some of the details of the end routine, but the ECE got a video on and we started getting the kids ready again. Though it was a little too early. Crazy times. Then we took them outside for dismissal. The ECE took the bus kids somewhere, with the help of someone else. I tried to look like I knew what I was doing. The kids all disappeared, so I guess it worked.

While I was writing up the note, the custodian came in. I let him know about the huge puddle under the fountain (a kid tried to fill his water bottle and created a waterfall). He nicely commiserated with me, about the supply life--he did it as a custodian too.

I made it home, exhausted after a half day. I wondered how the heck I would do three full days after arriving home from an almost 2 week road trip to Florida. Yikes.