Four day weekends

so much depends
upon

a four day
weekend

gaming with my
friends

staying up late
nightly.

apologies to William Carlos Williams

P.S. 27 years old and AP English and plenty of college English and I still don't understand the appeal of that poem. 

Taking Attendance

One of the most challenging parts of being a substitute, believe or not, is taking attendance. It's like the Russian Roulette of Names. No, its not the silly kids that like to say things like "BUHZINGUH" instead of "Here" or "Present". (Actually, that would be awesome if a kid said buhzinguh, like Sheldon). No, the challenging aspect comes from the pronunciation.




Parents these days are trying harder than ever to name their child uniquely, either through creative spellings or super-uncommon names. Hard as I try, there is usually one name I mess up in each class...that's just statistics.
I do try hard, and I'm not against people having their unique names. However, I *am* against the person whose name I unintentionally messed up getting all uppity and upset that I mispronounced their name.


I actually think I'm pretty sensitive to saying names correctly, ever since High School when one of my teachers called me "Jose" on the first day. (Really? You couldn't see the 'i' in "Josie"?) I don't super want other people to be embarrassed because their name was read wrong...but when you have a name that unique, you should expect it to be mispronounced and be prepared to politely redirect the pronouncer.


Another reason that it bothers me when they get all uppity is that those same students ask to call me "Mrs. A." They won't bother to learn my name (I even write the pronunciation underneath the name when I write it on the whiteboard), but they expect me to know their name and pronounce it correctly the very first time.


Here's a little pop-quiz for you, of some of the names I have encountered over the years....




Imagine you are taking attendance in the morning. The kids have just settled down, and you are running through the lists of names. If you mess up, 15 annoyed(ing?) voices will correct you all at once. **note: some of these names are not "unique" in their countries of origin, I had just never heard them before meeting said students.

1. Mickel
2. Dejuanana
3. Evgeniy*
4. Aurhea (i actually got this one right!!)
5. Thalia
6.Croix* (and this one too!!)




And then there are the countless different spellings... Ariana, Ahrianna, Ariahna... Mackayla, McKayla, Makayla, Makaela, Makaelah.... Aviana, Ayevianna, Aviannah.... You get the jist.  I am constantly triple checking to make sure I spell the names correctly.






Okay, here are the results of the quiz!!!

1. Mickel -Sounds like 'nickel' right??? Wrong! It's Michael!

2. Dejuanana -Pronounced 'Day-juh-nay.' Ignore the extra letters.

3. Evgeniy* - I'm sure it's common in Russia, but I had never seen it before. Eh-v-gen-ee (hard g.like again.)

4. Aurhea (i actually got this one right!!) Are-ee-yuh

5. Thalia Tay-lee-uh  (silly h, sounds are for REAL letters!)

6.Croix* (and this one too!!) French??? Croy 

The moral of the story is....if you're going to give your kid a unique name, at least teach them to get used to it being mispronounced. You don't see me throwing a tissy fit when Papa Murphey's writes my name on my pizza as "Joesy." (Maybe in my head...but not out loud!)

Scieeeeeeeeeence!

So, today I taught Science to a bunch of 4th graders. The concept was properties of water, specifically how it reacts on different surfaces: foil, wax paper, regular paper, and paper towels. They used an eye-dropper to put drops of water on the different surfaces and made observations. I also made some observations of my own...While walking around, I noticed there are primarily 4 different types of mini-scientists. 


Illustrated below are the four types, followed by a description of each.

1. The Freethinker- This student is probably the best actual scientist. He quickly moves on from the assignment to new territories. "What would water do on my skin? What would it do on my desk? On my shirt? On the pencil sharpener?" He is not afraid to take the scientific principals being taught to a whole. nother. level. Let's just hope he's also not afraid to clean up all his messes.


2. The Terrorist- This student is interested in science only to promote warfare and/or political take overs. Water dropper you say? "NAY! I say it is a weapon of mass destruction!! Watch out cute girl I secretly have a crush on but won't admit because I'm too embarrassed!!! Watch out, annoying kid's face! I'm going to take over the classroom with my new H20 WMD."


3. The Mess-Initiator- If putting one drop of water on wax paper is fun, then putting TEN MILLION drops would be SUPER FUN! This person, caught up in the moment, fails to realize they have created the world's biggest mess. Water drips off of books, the carpet is stained, and every single testing surface is covered in water."I bet it would be awesome to make a small swimming pool with my foil and fill it up as much as I can with water. "


4. The Listener- Paying attention to my instructions beforehand, this student actually listened. He tests the materials according to the assignment specifications, and actually makes scientific observations. He takes down meticulous notes and carefully conducts his experiments. "Yay! I actually learned the different absorbencies of the materials!"


Every class has these different student types...all working in unison to make my day a lot more interesting. :)

Happy v-day!

What a wonderful valentine's day!!! Today Jerm did ALL the driving (he hates to), and after work we had the world's best Indian food....oh man!

Now we're enjoying our dessert to some romantical music :)

Now, for some notes from the day. 

Second day of subbing in 5 different classrooms while the teachers had their one-hour technology trainings. It's a bit crazy to bounce from one class to another..from fifth grade to kindergarten, all in one day...but the good news is, if it sucks, I only have to stay there for 1 hour. :)

In one of the fifth grades, they were working on social studies, and having to write a song about the Boston Tea Party, so the teacher told me to look up some songs on youtube so they could sing along to the tune w/their words...Like, the Star Spangled Banner.
So, I get the instrumental version of the Star Spangled Banner up (making sure it is school appropriate first), then I leave the group by the computer to listen/sing along/etc. and I go to monitor some other groups. The music stopped after awhile, and I go over to see what's going on, and one of the boys (innocently enough) had started looking for a better version because the guitarist "goes crazy in the middle". Except he did a search for "Tea Party" and "Banner". I come over just in time to see a video of the crazy Tea Party protesters....HOPEFULLY before any craziness happened! I mean, what do kids know about the current Tea Party? He just thought he would find a good Boston Tea Party song.

Note to self: Never leave the computer unattended on Youtube...or the students might be exposed to craziest Fox News lovin' Republicans in the world ;)

Secondly, here is a letter to a parent I wrote in my head today.

Dear Parent,

Thank you so much for coming 3/4 of the way through our "pass-out-valentines time" with a box of unwritten valentines for your child. It was wonderful to have that kid bounce off the walls while everyone else passed out valentines and he just got to watch. Then, to have him have to IN FIVE MINUTES scramble to write his name on 24 valentines (nevermind that they knew about the party for weeks, and the teacher had sent home a note with all the students names so you could personalize it).  It was fantastic to have him scribble his name sloppily on all the valentines while two of his friends quickly passed them out. Great planning!

                                                                       Sincerely,

                                                                                   Josie

Overall, it was a great day, and I'm very lucky to have such a sweet and wonderful husband! :) Happy Valentines Day!

P.S. Jeremiah gave me these hearts he got from Guatemala...before we started dating and I had the biggest crush on him :) This is a picture I took at the time...like 10 years ago

Valentine's Day

I know Valentine's Day is cheesy and commercialized these days, but in elementary school it is as pure as it ever has been. I remember how exciting it was to make valentines for everyone. You get a list of their names and pick out one for everyone.

I don't know if it is just because I lived in the Middle of Nowhere, Montana growing up, but I remember making my cards by hand. None of those $3 boxes of premade cards with cheesy cartoon characters. HOURS of cutting hearts and hearts and hearts, and putting lace around the edges of the fancy ones.

When I got a little older, I started *customizing* the gifts. I would buy a big bag of those candy hearts and divide them up among my classmates. I actually picked the messages that the people would get...Thinking back on it now, it might be a little stalker-ish of me....

Nowadays, you just get those Disney Princess or Cars valentines, but the principle is still there. Making gifts for everyone in a non-denominational holiday. And then the big day arrives, and the teacher lets you bring your 24 gifts to school, and everyone passes out their valentines. SO MUCH CANDY! So many cards! Everyone gets some, and no one is left out.

Sometimes I miss being a little kid, on days like that.