Day 119: 29/4/13
I couldn't sleep for ages last night for no particular reason. Then a group of girls came into the room and turned on the light. Noone has done that since I've been in the hostel- if the light is off you leave it off. These girls spent ages sorting themselves so that I was even more awake. By the time the last one of them was ready one of the first ones were asleep and snoring really loudly!! Eventually I got some sleep but not much so I was tired getting ready for school this morning! The joys of staying in a hostel.
I was told when I was booked for this day that it was with a Prep class but it was actually teacher release again with 1/2's in the morning and 3/4's in the evening. So that was grand. The 1/2's had a student teacher and the teacher was just outside the room testing people so there was plenty of eyes on the kids! The teacher had everything set out. I had them first for an hour where they wrote about what they did for the weekend and read them a story. They did some exercises then which was cool. There was a program called Just Get Active on the whiteboard and they did the movements along with it. At first it was just shaking out their legs and hands and things, but then they were doing squats and push-ups and the plank! They did some meditation and breathing to settle them down then again.
The student teacher took them for reading and spelling then. One class were working with her while the other class were writing out their spellings and I was just observing them.
It was time for morning tea then. The teachers seemed nice but it was one of the only schools I've been in so far where everyone was 40 plus bar maybe one or two. A lot of the staff rooms have two or more tables and you never know which one to sit at. I seem to nearly always end up at one with less people somehow so it's hard to get talking to anyone. They're always talking about their own lives anyway and as I don't know of them you can rarely join in in the conversation!
The student teacher was going to teach Maths after break so she took the year 1's and I worked in the corridor with the year 2's. They were just doing addition and they were fine.
After that I went to 3/4. The teacher was just starting them off. She gave them a copy of their own timetable and wanted to know which subject thy spend the most time on in the week. They were to calculate the times each day and add them. They had about 45 minutes to do this. It was way too long for such a vague question. Most of them were just writing in 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 1hr, etc beside the subject on the timetable, but not adding up all the days. The teacher was there doing work in the class and in the office which was weird as I had to sort of take over. I ended up giving them specific questions like how much time on Integrated studies, etc, but they still didn't do much work!!
After break we had to go through the homework they had brought in which was designing a brochure about a particular national park in Victoria, explain their new homework, read a little of a book and then do a science experiment. I had to do the experiment and they had to write down the equipment, procedure, etc. it was a vague enough experiment- see how variables affect the result. There was a cup with water and some food dye and some card. You had to change the amount of water/dye/card to see how it would affect the result. The teacher had only left one cup and card so we had to go and ask we for some more. It said to leave them overnight aswell so we couldn't even fill in the result. She was there on te laptop in the room for most of the experiment so Im sure she would have stopped me if she wanted it don't differently! I've a feeling that we didn't put enough dye in to make the change to the card noticeable. It hadnt given any amounts or directions really so I was making it up! The teacher said it was fine anyway afterwards!
I'm back to that school again on Friday. It seems nice enough but the kids are way chattier than other schools I've been too- more like our kids at home!! The train station is about a 25 minute walk from the school and the train itself takes about 40 minutes so it means an early start, but I don't mind if I'm told before hand!
I hadn't gotten any messages or calls today about work tomorrow so I was wondering if this guarantees work meant anything at all. Then when I was just getting back go the hostel, after 5pm, they rang to book me in to the school I was in last week for the three days. It's more teacher release so I don't know what kind of meetings they have now!! It's a nice school anyway and it's close so I can't complain at all! Hopefully Ill get work Wednesday and Thursday too.
The laptop didn't seem to be working again today but I turned it on and off a few times and it magically worked. So I was able to put up some photos on the blog and on Facebook. It took ages as the hostel wifi is slow enough and I'm trying to save my one!! I'm off to bed now anyway, hoping for a snore free night!