Honors Community Volunteer Project: Day 2

**Student-Teacher**

The second day of my volunteer project, I spent the entire day (a Kindergarten school day) in a kindergarten classroom where I assisted a substitute teacher with keeping the kids on task and engaged. The regular teacher called in sick, as it was a day after a field trip and must have been pretty tired after a day of head-counting, noisy bus rides, and buddy-system bathroom trips.

As I entered the classroom, curious eyes followed and perked up at the site of a newcomer/potential new friend. The substitute introduced me by asking my age and grade I was in, inspiring an awe from the kids once again as she proclaimed I was "almost a grown-up".

Today they were making 4 page story books they had colored about a rooster and his house, which I helped to fold and staple correctly, while complementing nice coloring and staying inside the lines.

Several, mostly boys, were squirmy and had to be told to sit in their chairs several times while others sat quietly coloring their book pages. At the end of the day based on behavior, their were "color cards" in which different colors indicated levels of behavior such (blue: very good, green: good, yellow: ok, orange: bad, red:very bad etc.) These cards were placed in plastic slots on one of the walls next to their names, and colored correspondingly on a day-of-the-week sheet to keep track.

Although most had behaved, and one girl in particular became particularly fond of me, giving me a hug before the class was even over, and asking what I thought of her hair (as an attempt to bond with an elder female figure?) Some of the kids reactions to me were particularly memorable, as one boys asked why I was wearing the type of shoes I had on (which were sneakers), possibly due to the fact that maybe he thought only boys should wear them, and also questioned about my necklace and name tag, which I found quite interesting that he would take such notice in my appeal/and personal appearance (particularly of a a female) at such a young age. He later got a red behavior card for touching the ponytail one one of the girls in class.

Also, when the sub asked what high school I went to, one of the other boys responded excitedly stating: "My older brother goes there too!" as I noticed they looked alike and had the same last name from his desk tag. His brother was also a senior, had gone to that elementary school as me, and were in several classes together.

After helping all of the kids staple and finish their books, it was time for daily lesson of numbers a pronouns in which I held up flash cards on numbers/pronouns for the kids as they repeated in in synonymously. As they each sat "criss-cross apple sauce" on their rug square (as Indian style now un-PC), I sat in the chair in front of them all saying the pronounce/numbers as they repeated them afterward. When I held up the word "we", one of the boys had added a "d" at the end of repeating the the word several times, making others giggle.

After I had gone through all of the cards, the substitute put on a CD about numbers and nouns which the kids sang along with, while using hand gestures for the song. Then it was time for bingo and each child was given a blanks sheet of squares to fill out using the digits 0-9 for the grand prize of several gummy bears. I went around to each table to make sure everyone had filled out their cards, helping to come up with numbers and how to "spell" the number 11.

Once every was finished with their cards, I repeated the numbers called out after the substitute, made sure everyone had marked them if they had it, and checking "Bingo's". Following the game and the explicit trading of gummy bears and pleading from those who won, I passed out papers about parent info night for "Take-Home folders", and made sure everyone sat quietly to be called out for lunch. The sub had thanked me for helping to keep everyone under control, and the kids shouted "THANK YOU!" in unison before I left.

Kindergarten: And fun and tiring (void of nap-time) experience.