Another day another dollar

Another week has passed.  Again, most "exciting" stories were had while teaching.
On Wednesday I was booked to teach only in the morning to the year 1 class that I went to a couple weeks ago. Once again the trip there was interesting... I decided to take another route which involved tram then bus, but cut down the walk from about 25 mins to less than 5. Would have been a great idea if the bus had shown up on time. But one didn't come and since they are every 20 minutes or so I froze my ass off waiting for the next one.  I finally get to the school, mildly hypothermic, and walked in to discover that once again this teacher has left me NOTHING to work with. This time she didn't even leave me the learning intentions for each subject so I am really on my own. The lady she shares with was there (thank heavens!) and this lack of organisation must be becoming more common because she was chapped!! "That's not fair! She can't just leave you with no plans. She can't just go and leave nothing prepared! This is ridiculous!" ...... my thoughts exactly!

We start rummaging through books and I find some relevant math worksheets and she comes up with some literacy work and we manage to scrape up a plan for the morning. The kids are much better now that I already have some key names under my belt! They talk about how it is cold outside, I tell them how where I come from it is snowing! Can you guess where I come from? Here are some of the answers: France? Jamaica? Africa??  Ummmm.... maybe we should try to fit some geography in today.
Just before lunch I am asked to stay on for the afternoon in a different class - the year 4 class that I was in the day after Halloween.  Things also went better second time around in this class, again knowing names is crucial!! They were still rather haywire, but we all survived and only myself and about half the class left with a headache at the end of the day.
The following day I was booked for the afternoon in a reception class - 4 year olds... I went in the morning to buy a nice warm jacket because I had been warned it was about a 20 minute walk from the station. It went well, I was a highly paid babysitter! They came in from lunch, "read" quietly (looked at pictures), then the TA did phonics with them, then I supervised them playing outside. Decent.
After work I met up with 2 fellow teachers/Canadians and we went to the Wimbledon Winter Festival. Parade, fireworks, crepes, gingerbread lattes... wonderful night!!