Back to School

My school district keeps on calling me almost daily to sub. I do not care to sub in schools other than Jersey, and I won't sub in any other grades than Kinder, and I won't sub on Tuesdays, or Thursdays. So I really haven't been subbing too much, and I am OK with it. By the time they take Federal and State taxes it's hardly worth waking up early ;)

Once in a while, I do sub. Yesterday my school's secretary wanted to know if I could sub just in the afternoon for the PreK and K SH class, the teacher had to go to a meeting. I said OK.

I got there and talked to the teacher before she went to the meeting. The class consists of 8 children, 3 preK and 5 K, there are 4 aides + the teacher. The children have several levels of autism.

I had never worked with an autistic class. I worked with deaf and hard of hearing, ADD, and Asperges children, that were going to be integrated into a regular K classroom.

This was today's schedule:

11-11:30 lunch (the aides were with them at all times)
11:30-11:45 recess
Pre K went home at 12, the K kids went to Library after recess.
12:15-12:30 I read a book to them, their attention span is super short, I had to do a lot of different voices and animal noises etc, even so a couple of them totally ignored the story and did their own thing.
12:3-12:45 Singing, ABCs, numbers. (Fridays are "easy" days just fun thngs)
12:45-1:15 Centers
1:15-1:45 PE and Recess
1:45-2:15 Circle time. Clean Up and dismissal

Now that sounds simple and easy right? Well it wasn't. Wendell wanted to run out of the class at any time, had to be watched constantly. Jose would go around the class and take everything off the shelves, Luke liked to chew his clothes, he always had something in his mouth, his shirt, his pants, his socks. He tried to chew my blouse too! Ryan didn't stop crying for a second. It was funny because he did every gesture that went along with the stories while crying, he wanted to be picked up too.. Isabella was the only girl and she was really cute and I did not see many autism signs. Adrian looked really familiar, and sure enough, I had his older brother now in 5th grade, in my Kindergarten class, he was a sweetheart and so is Adrian.

Here's a couple of pictures I took at the Centers. Wendell is playing with the rice table, that was fun for me too :), Adrian and Isabella were doing puzzles.

When Isabella's dad came to pick her up and he hi Mrs. Wann what are you doing here? I told him I was subbing and he told me I had had 2 of his kids in Kinder, the girl Michelle is now 29, and the boy Victor is 27. He said Isabella was a surprise!. I remembered his kids after he told me the names, but wondered how he still remembered me after 20+ years...he said I just look the same!!! LOL, I heard it many times and I never know if I look good for my age or if I looked old 20 years ago :/

And of course, I saw a lot of my older K kids that call me Mrs Wann or Mrs Gummy Bear and some still ask me what grade I'm teaching now. As if I had not been gone. :)

I had a nice day.