Betsy the Sub

My kids’ school was desperate, so I was asked to substitute teach high school.

Teacher Betsy. I think the fuzzy sweater really sells it.

But under the long skirt…

I literally dusted off my combat boots for this because that seemed appropriate.

The first class was physics. My mom, not a science/math person, suggested I text her if I had questions. She’s hilarious.

As heard in a Kindergarten classroom, part 8

princess (Photo credit: hudsonthego)

One of my students enlisted me one recess to be her “scribe.” “Sit down, and write what I say.” I pretended to pull out a scroll, as the girl gazed off in the distance, pondering the correct wording for the message to her mother. Obviously having been enlightened, she turned to me, pointed a finger at the pretend scroll, motioning for me to write, and said, “Dear Mother,” she began,

As heard in a Kindergarten classroom, part 7

“Let’s all draw some things that remind us of home,” one student proposed one day. “I’m going to draw a pink flamingo.”

Teaching a lesson, prior to being hired for the kindergarten position, I was passing out chalk to the students for a lesson activity, and after setting it on the desk of one of the boys, he looked up at me and said emphatically, “I love you.”

“I miss my mommy,” one student told me one day. Being more than 1000 miles away from my own mommy, I whispered back to her, “I miss my mommy, too.” She smiled a sweet smile back and nodded in acknowledgment of my comment. Then she said, “But you

As heard in a Kindergarten classroom, part 6

Talking to one of the 3rd graders one day, I asked him how his year was going. He said to me, “Oh, it’s going okay. I’ll be really glad when we’re done with fractions, though.” I nodded understandingly, “Tough, huh?” Without missing a beat he said, “Well, not exactly, but they make my parents fight.”

A fellow teacher’s student mentioned something about his mom going to the salon to get her hair cut. Another student replied, “Oh wow! That’s funny. My mom actually goes to the salon to get hair put on.”

What a tease our Founding Fathers were!

The United States Declaration of Independence. I can’t read this; can you?

I asked the students in my history class to write lines from the Declaration of Independence that they were to have memorized. One student started out well, but then…

As heard in a Kindergarten classroom, part 5

During our morning saint of the day lessons, my class would often try to think up reasons to raise their hands for questions completely unrelated, as it was the beginning of the day and there was always news to share from the previous day. In an attempt to keep us on task one day, I asked one of my girls who had her hand raised if her question was about our saint of the day. She assures me that it is. “Alright, what is you question then?” She obviously had not quite thought through how she was going to approach this

Show some respect for authority.

When I was homeschooling my oldest son, his little brother, too young for school, came to the table and asked what we were doing. When we told him, he said, “Can I come too?”  I said sure. He sat down and then said, “What do I do now, teacher?”  His older brother, who was busy with his own work, corrected him saying,

How to know when your child isn’t paying attention

You ask a question like this:

“What were the books in Ashurbanipal’s library made from?” [Ashurbanipal was an Assyrian king. (I’d never heard of him either.)]

And your child answers:

As heard in a Kindergarten classroom, part 4

I was pulling wet wipes out of the container and the wipes had kinda balled up at the bottom. One of my boys seeing me struggling, says, “Kinda hard, Miss C, huh? Just about as hard as pulling a thorn out of a dinosaur.”

Who says teaching is easy?

I was guest teaching a phonics lesson in my child’s kindergarten class when, as luck would have it, that day’s topic was the “uck” family. The objective was for the students to come up with and write down words