Owls are Not Turtles

I got a comment on my owl card from Vodka Mom last night:

"I want you to come to room 121 at Park Forest Elementary tomorrow morning. You are doing the craft center. Don't be late (9:15)"

Little does she know that I would have loved to do that. For more reasons than one. I substituted in our elementary schools for 15 years before I took the job in the school office. Almost every sub that I knew had their favorites and most of them stayed away from Kindergarten, Art, and Gym. Now, I wanted to work so I would say yes to anything, but I really enjoyed Kindergarten and Art. Gym was the killer for me, not so much the physical activity, because as a sub, you're not running around. It was the noise that got me with that.

I loved to be called for the elementary art class or the kindergarten. The other subs said I was nuts.

"You get dirty in those classes." (Yes, you might, but I'd rather be dirty than catch some middle-schooler drawing dirty pictures.)

"You're on your feet all day." (Yes, you are, but if you're not moving around in a middle school classroom, someone is going to be drawing dirty pictures.)

"I can't deal with all the whining." (Whose? Theirs or yours?)

No, I was the go-to person when the art teacher was out three days in a row at a workshop every fall, or when the kindergarten teacher(s) were doing testing, or had extended absences. And I was appreciated. And they told me so. And not just on one day in April ....... um, I digress here, sorry.

So when I saw that comment last night it brought back some good memories. What would I do for the craft center in Vodka Mom's, er, Mrs. Patrick's Kindergarten class? I think, since it is fall and near Halloween, and because I had owls on the mind, that I would do paper bag owls and/or bats. They are fun and easy and we could talk about them being nocturnal and what that meant. If, Mrs. Patrick so desired.

Which also reminded me of the time I was subbing in Kindergarten and doing a lesson on nocturnal animals. I read the class a book while they were sitting on the carpet. Then we talked about what nocturnal meant and listed the animals that were nocturnal on the board. Then, I believe there were worksheets to color (I would have added the bag animals here, but I was following the teacher's plans).

Later that morning, when we were all packed up and waiting for the buses I asked the class what we had learned today. And the answer I got from George, who always wore his rubber boots to school in kindergarten - "We learned that owls are not turtles."

Could you have kept a straight face?