Karma?

It never fails that I get called to go supply for elementary school when I get the least amount of sleep. The first and only other time (two years ago now) that I went for elementary, I had two hours of sleep, at most. That turned out to be a very frustrating day. I think I was only able to function due to adrenaline from breaking up fights and sticking kids out in the corridor.

Today, I had another insomniatic 3-hour-sleep night(although I did take a 3 hour nap the previous evening) and I was called at 7 am. Fortunately, not for the same school as mentioned above. I proceeded to head up to Valcartier again, armed this time with the violin and one bag of tea. Both turned out to be the most useful items during the day.

The elementary French teacher was out today, and had left the (apparently usual) arsenal of wordsearch, connect-the-dots, and coloring pages. I am a bit more experienced now with the much younger kids (after seeing my colleagues up there zipping around with buttloads of activities for one day), so I knew that what was left for these kids was not enough. I spent the busride up and the ten minutes I had before class associating (French?) musical activities with these worksheets.

The first one I had was with the grade 3 class, which turned out really well in my opinion. I assigned the wordsearch and then had them fill in some of the lyrics to a song that Jorgh and I are familiar with... but I had forgotten the real words (especially considering I hadn't planned to dig up such an old memory this morning) so I had to make up for some of the original lyrics:

Rose, rose, comme la fleur
Brun, brun, comme la terre
Bleu, bleu, comme le ciel
Vert, vert, comme la mer

Mauve, mauve, comme la nuit
Rouge, rouge, comme le feu
Jaune, jaune, comme le soleil
Chante, chante les couleurs!

Once again, I forgot all the original lyrics. But it doesn't matter because the kids actually sang the song along with me playing it, whose tune I do recall because that's the only thing I ever remember.

The second class was with grade 6, and that went just as well. I winged the music activity because the students were first given back their French tests that I gave the solutions to, then given the "Les oiseaux" word search... then I played a few songs that were bird themed; "The Thornbirds" (which somehow someone correctly translated because I couldn't remember the French name), "Turkey in the Straw" (which Scott came in and started step dancing to), and the Chicken song.

Then came the grade 1s... I don't think it went as badly that class as the entire day at that other elementary school, but I was still pretty upset. The boys were completely edgy and slipping in curse words at every turn, and they would tell on each other afterwards. It was a nutball class but I could probably attribute it to the absence of the regular teacher and the fact that they were going to go swimming in the afternoon.

I had only about fifteen minutes with the other grade 1 class, so the teacher gave me two English books to read to the class. They were both pretty cute; the first was "When Jeremiah Found Mrs. Ming" and the second one was My Dog is an Elephant." The kids were very appreciative of the reading and I enjoyed it as well. Then the kids were herded off to the swimming pool across the street.

About a half hour later, while I was idling in the teacher's lounge, there was a huge flash of light, and suddenly a great big BOOM. The thick pattering sounds echoed through the room, even penetrating through the closed windows. Five minutes later, as I watched, a river of screaming grade 1, 2 and 3s charged onto the school grounds.

There was one poor kid who had been ridiculously sunburnt on his back during the weekend and thus he couldn't go swimming. But while I was looking after him, the grade 2/3 teacher had asked that he help his friends out at the pool, and so he came back in soaking wet.

I asked him with a concerned tone if he was alright because of the rain, and he said he was okay. He replied with this huge grin, "I went swimming without getting in the pool!" I told him that he would probably feel it later. Not five minutes after I spoke, he became a weeping ball of a kid in the corner, being comforted by the adult volunteers, and the teacher was trying her best to figure out what they could do to comfort his stinging back. (I hope I don't sound smug, because I was feeling rather bad for having let the kid out in the first place when the teacher asked for him.)

Anyway, she told me to pacify the remainder of her class by playing the violin for the rest of the day for them, which I was going to anyway since I was supposed to be in that class.

My favourite moments of the day were the kids singing and dancing along with my playing and listening intently while I was reading; my least favourite moment was when the kid was bawling out the door with a cooled hankie on his back.

The moral of the story? Elementary is fine, I suppose, if one takes each class by dose rather than stay with a class all day.