"What I like about fish is...chips!"

Today was quite a day! I had another practicum day today and it was a bit crazy. I knew it was going to be an insane day when I got to class and Emily, the teacher, was feeling very sick. She called for a supply (substitute) teacher even before school started and he came after just about an hour or so. It was interesting because all the troublemakers in the class were absent today but two arrived seconds after Emily left. Ironic, for sure.

So we had a great literacy lesson today on fables, folk tales, etc. I can tell the kids are really going to like the unit - thank goodness! After that, was break where I got to help one student finish some of his work. It surprised me because he is very ill-behaved but great to work with one-on-one. After break was math. That was the start of craziness. Clearly students are worse behaved when a different teacher is in the classroom. And I realized that they cling to adults that they know. Therefore, I got questions up the wazoo! It was great feeling like students wanted me to help them, but it was difficult nonetheless. After maths was lunch, followed by reading groups. I got to lead my own group today due to lack of adults and it was a very interesting experience. My group read about Henry VIII and his many wives. (The word "adultery" appeared in the story and that got my group in a very confusing state.) Apparently, my students really like to read aloud, they just hate writing. I had lots of complaints and not great behavior. I, unfortunately, had to kick into disciplinarian mode, which is tough because I don't quite know the rules of the classroom and don't want to cross any boundaries. However, a couple of the boys in my group did very well, so I was proud of them. After that, I finally saw a Religious Education lesson. It wasn't super interesting and the kids absolutely detest RE. However, they were fairly well-behaved during the lesson, which I am sure was a relief to the supply teacher. After RE, the kids had a bit of time to play a game. They were having a lot of fun until the last two minutes of school. Two of the boys in the class got into a fist fight in the middle of the classroom! They were insulting and cursing and being awfully rude. It was atrocious! The teacher had to pull one student off the other and I had to take the other one into the hallway. It was quite an incident and not a great way to end the day.

The practicum day, on a whole, was pretty ok, though. The supply teacher was really cool. He was fairly young and from South Africa. He is going back to South Africa in like 4 days because his London work visa expires. He was very nice and we definitely had quite a day together with 5T. Also, a couple of my kids were really cute today. One girl asked if it was my last day and, even though it wasn't, asked me why I had to leave and if I could come back always. It was so sweet. My second story involves one of the little boys that got into the fight. Pre-fight, I was helping him with some work. I was wearing a long heart necklace and he starts playing with it, trying to open it like a locket. I was confused until he asked me, with a little devilish grin, "Who gave this to you? Was it your huuuusband?" I told him no and changed the subject quite quickly - as is evident from reading groups, romance and fifth years just doesn't work.

After practicum, we had education seminar. It was cool today because we had a guest speaker who talked with us about creative writing. We wrote some fun poems and got some ideas for great lessons. The title of my blog comes from this lesson. The speaker told us about a five year old who was asked what his favorite food was. He responded with "fish." The man asked him what he liked about fish and the little boy said "chips." I thought it was the cutest story! It turned into a great poem, too, so that was very fun.

After seminar, a few of us got dinner and then headed to another play. This time it was Pitmen Painters and I really enjoyed it. The message was about the meaning of art and changing the world through art. I liked it a lot!

Anywho, that was a long re-cap of my long day. I'm quite exhausted, so I'm off to bed. Hope you all have a great night!