Tuesday was: Not the best day

Jeez, even my parents gave me grief about not posting Thursday or Friday...

Miles wasn't there on Thursday. We had a substitute [the same one we've had both other times that Miles wasn't there]. It was a bit of madness. Really, even the GOOD kids had BAD moments.

I suppose the tone for the day was set when I showed up in the morning and the classroom was locked. Luckily, the next door kindergarten room links to ours via a door which is always unlock. But, this meant that I could not close the door at all during the day, otherwise, we'd have had to keep walking through the other kindergarten room. Yes, I went to the office right away and asked for a key to our room door, but the secretary couldn't find a key. She promised to get me a key at some point in the day, but it never happened. After school, I went to a professional development meeting in the library with the other teachers and was sure to leave the door ajar with a doorstop tucked in the way. When I realized that I should probably have a notebook with me to take notes, I ran downstairs and someone had shut my classroom door all the way. Thanks. To make things worse, the next-door kindergarten door was also closed and locked and the teacher was sitting in at the meeting that I was supposed to be at - so, I couldn't very well ask him for the key to get into his room [thus allowing me to get into my room]. SO, I went to the office to check on the progress of that key that the secretary was supposed to get for me earlier in the day. "Oh! That's right! I was supposed to get a room key for you!" Yeah, thanks for remembering NOW! She instructed me to run back upstairs and talk to the janitor woman who was vacuuming. Sure enough, she had a key and saved the [end of] the day.

So, yeah, the day was kind of crazy. I pretty much took most of the morning, and then let the sub take the afternoon - at least, that's the way that I mentioned to her that we should do things. Unfortunately, she kept butting in on my time, so I butted in during her time. Really, when it comes down to it, I just don't really like her teaching style. I like Miles because he, like me, just TALKS to the kids - we both teach the kids like they are human beings, rather than little creatures that need to be coddled and spoken to in a syrupy-sweet voice. Plus, like I knew would happen, I interjected when she was doing things that were contrary to how we usually do things in the room - as I predicted, I ended up speaking up when she was deviating from the way the class normally runs. During Math time we passed out a sheet with a bunch of squares on it which had different shapes of different colors on them. The kids were just supposed to cut out the shapes and then sort them however they wanted [all the squares together, all of the blue shapes together, etc.] on their tables. I saw a couple of students with bottles of glue on their tables so I walked over and said, "I did NOT tell you guys to get glue. We aren't going to be doing any gluing." As I took the bottles back to the supply cabinet, some other kids were getting bottles of glue for their tables. "I didn't tell anyone to get GLUE. We aren't GLUING." They informed me that the sub had told them that they would be gluing down their sorted shapes on white paper. Sure enough, I look over and she's handing out sheets of white paper to everyone. OK. Actually, I'm painting her out to be a lot worse than she really is - we do get along, and we both agreed that the kids were kind of unruly all day. I even went over and TURNED OFF THE LIGHTS at one point. Because it hadn't been done at all up to that point, I think the kids just thought that I wanted the room to be a bit darker.

The girl with autism had a rough day. I think we can pretty safely say that she NEEDS routine and familiarity, and when there is a change she doesn't know what to do so she freaks out. No, we didn't have any scribbling on desks [or me] or running out of the classroom, but, she was pretty defiant and refused to sit in on ANYTHING we did as a whole class. She preferred, instead, to run around, do somersaults, or sit off in a corner by herself. At one point, she crawled under a table after I took a chart-card with Mimi Mouse on it away from her [which I, literally, had to PRY from her fingers]. Oh, and there were 4 kids sitting at the table. She wouldn't come out so I cleverly said to her, "Ok, you have a choice. You can either come out from under there or I can go and call the Principal to come down here and..." Wow, she REALLY doesn't like the Principal - she INSTANTLY scooted out and went to her chair. Sure, she didn't stay there for long, but...
I'm not quite sure what her fascination was with the Mimi Mouse card, but when she was leaving for the day she wanted to take it home with her. I stopped her at the door [the backdoor on the room which leads outside] and said, "No, you can't take this home because other kids need to look at it." She kept pointing to the card and then pointing across the school yard. "You want to take it home?" She shook her head, and pointed at the card and then across the school yard. I never found out what she meant and I felt SO bad that I couldn't understand what she was trying to tell me.

The BIGGEST news surrounding the girl with autism is that I'm pretty sure she made some sound! Yeah, she's snickered before while misbehaving, but this was a sound I hadn't heard before. I was working with the class and I heard this odd screech. Honestly, it kind of sounded like a puppy in pain - but, I saw her with this guy who's been the para for the girl in the wheelchair for the last week or so. He's not so great with the girl in the wheelchair [when she talks back to him (she actually tells HIM to have "a timeout"...) he just takes it], but he's REALLY good with the girl with autism, getting her to write and draw and sit still. Anyway, he was doing something with her and she must've really enjoyed it because she squeaked a couple of times. Unfortunately, he left while I was seeing some kids off for the day and I didn't get a chance to ask him how he got her to make the noise. I'm dying to know, though.

Have I mentioned that we have an ALL DAY field trip to the AQUARIUM coming up on TUESDAY!?