We had a sub today

As I walked down the hall to Ms. H's class room, I met one of the first graders.  D was taking the attendance report to the office.  He was so excited to see me (I have missed for two weeks) and he had news.  "Ms. H is sick and we have a sub!"  I am thinking please please let it be Ms. C, she knows what she is doing.  It was.  But a sub day is always a hard day.  Children do not handle change well, and they will push a sub to her limit.  Yes, even first graders will act differently just because a substitute teacher is there.  We had our work cut out for us.

They were wild, pushing, talking, ignoring all rules.  Ms. C is earning her paycheck today.  Ms. H had lots and lots of projects to keep the children busy.  Books were read and projects done from the stories.  We worked, we got things done, but we worked.

Below I have some pictures I took of the classroom.  No children shown of course, just things in the classroom.

I wanted you all to see the flowers on the tables.  Only one was knocked over today.  Not bad for active first graders.  I am guessing Ms. H has the flowers as part of the study of harvest and Thanksgiving.

This another view of the classroom.  As you can see, everything is really close together.  We are in a portable which in many ways is good.  We have our own heating and AC.  Today we had heat, the main building didn't.  Since it was in the 40's outside, a little chilly in the other classrooms.

This is my little area where I work with the students.  Not a lot of cleared space, but we make it work.

A page from the famous Dolch List.  I made notes on words missed, if they struggled or  if they knew the words as sight words. Some flew through the list, others struggled with every word.  If the children can be believed, some are not getting any practice at home.

 This is a review chart that grows throughout the year.  And yes, first graders use the word Homophones.

This list is for writing projects on Thanksgiving.  They wrote riddles today about a food they have on Thanksgiving.  They had to give three clues, write What am I?  and then draw a picture of the food.
My favorite was:  You kill me.   I have feathers. I have white and brown meat.  What am I?  turkey  One little boy was horrified to find out his turkey was killed.  There was quite a discussion between two of them about where meat comes from.

Ms. C read the class the book Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs.  Then they were to write sentences about weird weather.

This is the chart with the sentences they wrote together.  Then they had to write some on their own.  The last sentence is a reference to a Dr. Seuss book I read to them a while back. We misspelled oobleck.

This is the book I read to them. It is written by a Native American Chief.  It is a beautifully written book and wonderfully illustrated.  After I read it, Ms. C discussed thanksgiving, the harvest, and cornucopias.  They then did an art project on cornucopias. 

It was a busy day.  Lots of fussin' at the little ones.  But we got lots done.