Morning Calendar Disaster

January 24th
Well the day started out any way but normal. Instead of picking up two classes from the library like I have been I was told to pick up a third class and to show the substitute for one of the bilingual classes where her class for the day is waiting for her. I got my class and the two extra classes and walked them down to our room. The extra students had to sit on the carpet while we waited for one teacher and tried to find the other teacher's split list. This was a new term for me, but it basically means that because there was no substitute available for the class so all the students would be split up among the remaining kindergarten classrooms. This was supposed to be my first day doing morning calendar and I was quiet sure that I was really ready to take it on yet. But it became obvious at 8:35 when my teacher was still trying to figure all the splitting and what to do during specials time that I had to do it. Well I did my best job with extra students and all. K was so upset by all the commotion and other things that he sobbed the entire time that I was doing calendar. Nothing I said or did changed his behavior, so I just had to teach over it which is something that I was very unnerved about. The students do their number of days math problems on a white board. As I was doing them I had a student tell me that my five looked bad. It came with a little bit of sting, but I responded that I was having a hard time writing on the new board that it was something I still needed to practice and that was ok. I continued on with their morning routine and got out their next activity, but thankfully by the time I was getting ready to explain what they would be doing my teacher was back and she took over. I had to reflect for a moment and realize that young children will alway be brutally honest I need not take it so personally and that as far as K goes I will have many more days where he cries through my teaching. Oh what a day it turned out to be!