Substitute Teaching Elementary Again! Let’s Add 4th and 5th

Join meas I recount my whirlwind adventure across third, fourth, and fifth-grade classrooms, topped with the unexpected joy of teaching my granddaughter’s class. Ever wondered which grade might just steal a teacher's heart, or what on earth happens when a scheduling mishap turns into a delightful twist? You're about to find out how these stories unfold and what they reveal about the unpredictable yet rewarding life of a substitute teacher.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Greg Collins. Substitute Teachers Lounge podcast. It is the November 19th 2024 episode. Back on September 24th, we did a podcast about substitute teaching elementary school because I did third grade for the first time. This is sort of part two. I knew I was going to do it, because now I have also subbed fourth grade, fifth grade and sped all in elementary school. You're going to hear my thoughts. What I want you to do right now, though, is see what you think my conclusions are going to be. What's specific to each age group? Which age group did I like best? Do I even want to go back to elementary school? We'll find all that out. Substitute Teacher's Loud.

Speaker 1: 1:05

All right, a couple of things I actually left out in the opening that were very unique to subbing fifth grade. I actually did the three grades in order. I did third grade back on September 24th, I did fourth grade at a different school back two weeks ago, and now I've done fifth grade and I had a SPED class in there too, at a different school. The fifth grade class I did this past week was at the class or at the school, I should say. I started in back on September 24th, so it was so cool, first of all, to see those third graders come up and say, oh, you're subbing our class again today. And I said, no, I'm in the fifth grade today. And they talked to me at lunchtime and I said, yeah, I hadn't looked up the date and I was thinking maybe that was three weeks ago and it was September 24th. So they said, oh, no, mr Collins, it was at least a month ago. So they were right in that regard.

Speaker 1: 2:02

The two unique things, both of which had never happened to me before Now. The first one is an easy one because for the first time ever, I got to sub one of my grandchildren. She is in the fifth grade. In fact, her birthday was two days ago. She's 11 now. So happy birthday, anna, and I enjoyed subbing your class. Happy birthday, anna, and I enjoyed subbing your class.

Speaker 1: 2:26

And the other thing is my original sub date on the chart in the system was Thursday. So they told me how to get there. They have these hallways, but I still had to ask one of the students which hall how I got to the green hallway. So I went down there, walked in. Somebody was in that room. He looked up and saw me.

Speaker 1: 2:49

I said how you doing? And I didn't know if it was a teacher, a janitor or what it was. But so I finally said are you mr? Then I said his name and he said yes. And I said am I supposed to be your sub today? And he said well, no, I don't need a sub today. And he said yes. And I said am I supposed to be your sub today? And he said well, no, I don't need a sub today. And I said well, I signed up for this like over a week ago and it was for today. He said I need a sub tomorrow and I said well, first of all, if it's just a mistake and I can come back tomorrow, that's okay, because I only had a half a day scheduled tomorrow. It ended up working out by the end of the day that that that would have gone away anyway. So I'm glad this worked out. I said I'll cancel that, let's go. He said let's go to the office, figure it out. So we went to the office. Sure enough, he had accidentally scheduled Thursday instead of Friday, so I canceled my half day Friday. I went on home because this is the closest school to me. On a good day it's probably about a mile and a half. On a good day I could have walked. It probably wouldn't have, but I could have. So it's only about a five minute drive from my house, so no big deal. I just did, took care of some other things and went back on Friday, had a great day. So I walk in and what I have found now now the third grade class that I talked to you about back in September, I assume it's the same through most of the country, through our country anyway. I know we've got many international listeners now being anxious to know how it is in your area. But third grade and younger, the teacher has the same kids all day long. That's a decision maker in and of itself. Would you rather have the same 30 kids all day long or would you rather have different kids throughout the day? I think I lean towards the second. In fact, when I taught fourth grade two weeks ago, they you know they caught me on the way out and said Mr Collins, can we put you on our list now? I said, yes, you can. I would love to come back, but I really want to stick with third grade and higher. And they said all right, we understand Fourth and fifth grade. When you get to that level of elementary school, they change classes and both schools did it the same way, sort of you start out with a homeroom of about 30 kids and you do a few small things in the homeroom for a half an hour in the fourth grade when I did it there. Then that group splits up and they go to their individual subject classrooms. About a third of them stayed in my room for English, about a third of them went for social studies and the other third went to math and there's a combination there Like, for instance, the fifth grade I taught last week. The same guy was doing both social studies and I don't know if it still falls under English language arts. I mean, we were talking about conjunctions and prefixes and suffixes and stuff like that in fifth grade. So, by the way, I hope I don't forget to do this for the episodes over. I asked a question of the fifth grade students that they gave me the answer more quickly than any middle school or high school class I've ever been in, so hats off to them. I know some of the fourth graders are listening to this podcast because they wanted to know a lot about it, and I'm sure the third graders or the fifth graders will, because I didn't mention it that much Now. When I got to the fifth grade it was really the same format as the fourth, except that my homeroom started and we did a few miscellaneous things. Then, when it came time to change classes, it's still your homeroom kids in that first block and you do your social studies type of thing. We were actually doing some New England type studies and settlements and all that good stuff. So we did that. Then the next block I have is a second third of the kids and then the final third is the third block of the kids and then after that we go back to homeroom. So I had my first block kids back together and, just like in fourth grade, had them for the duration of the day and we started off by doing a reading for about 15 minutes, because after that they were going to go to lunch and recess for an hour half and half. And he said you could either pick some kids to read for you or you can read it to them themselves. So I asked them and they jumped at the chance to read. It was so cute man it was. I don't know if they want me to call them cute, but it was so cool to see them reading in front of the class. One of the teachers other teachers came in to one of the girls had left a necklace in her class and she brought it back to her and I could tell she was pretty impressed because here this student was reading from a book in front of the class. The kids were quiet and it looked pretty impressive. I'll have to say I gave the fifth grade a hard time because I said listen, you know, they want to be Gen Z. They're using the Gen Z words. They probably said the word slay more than any Gen Z group of kids I've ever come in contact with. And I said you all realize that by definition, if you look it up on Google based on your birth year, you guys are actually generation alpha, you're the next generation. So I got them fired up about that and I asked them I said what do you think my generation's word was? They guessed that it was boomers and they'd never guessed groovy. I like to bring that one up because that's unique enough that you know nobody really says groovy anymore. They still say cool. They might still say out of this world, that kind of thing that reminds me to back to the future. But anyway, so that was my fifth grade. It went great. I took some jolly ranchers with me. I made light of the fact when I was in the second block, which is where my granddaughter was, that I said, all right, do you guys like Jolly Ranchers? And of course they all said yes and I said well, I said I've heard that somebody's birthday is this weekend, so in honor of that person we're going to hand out some Jolly Ranchers. Well, they all knew it was my granddaughter and most of them already knew that I was her grandfather. A lot of them were going to her classmate party tonight. It was mainly the girls of the class she was in, but I thought that was kind of cool and we went from there. So here's the way I would differentiate between those three grades and I'm going to tell you my favorites not favorite student. Of course I still now I will say this fifth grade probably more than any other group, when they knew that I was going to leave notes for the teacher to tell him who my favorite class of the day. Although I usually don't put favorite on the sheet, the notes that I leave him, I usually say this class was the best class of the day. I do that, but I make sure I emphasize that all the students behaved. All of them did their work. I just thought this class was the best class of the day. I usually do it that way. So if you're so inclined, they know I don't leave very many negative reviews. I wouldn't have had to in the fifth grade anyway, and I did have a co-teacher in there, for I guess it was while I was with my homeroom, I guess just because you're with those kids for so long. By the way, here's the conclusions, let me say first of all, by the way, here's the conclusions. Let me say first of all my opinion and why I don't really do long-term anymore. Even more than a couple of days kind of freaks me out a little bit. Having said that, I'll go ahead and say and it was very, very close. So those of you that are listening, I'm going to say that I still enjoyed that third grade class the most. But yet I also enjoy the classes where I get to see all the students in the grade before it was over. So I didn't do that in third grade. So, even though third grade was my favorite, my favorite format is the changing classes, because I get to meet more kids I get to joke with them about anything. Lunch recess. My son-in-law father of the granddaughter that I had in class, also teaches at this school. We were out on recess at the same time. I got one of the basketballs out and we started shooting some basketballs. Then a couple of kids came up and wanted to shoot basketball too, and they would try to get me to do different things that are popular now, like silly dances, and of course I just did disco and all that fun stuff happened. So I would still put my third grade class at the top now by and by. I should have said this at the beginning. I'm talking here. Like you know, I've now taught third, fourth and fifth, so I've got some expertise I can give you. Well, I don't really. I don't have enough experience yet, but first impressions are third grade is my favorite. Fourth and fifth grade I like because they change classes and you still have that one-third of the class. You have them in the morning and almost the entire afternoon, but that entire afternoon also includes recess and lunch. It includes an activity which can be music gym. This particular week it was club day. They were giving new clubs. They were excited, man, I tried. One of them is a bakery club and they were bringing back fresh bread. And I'm thinking, man, I wish I had gone down there and watched you. Maybe I could finagle some bread and take some lessons too. I wish I had done that because that bread really looked good. And book club, technology club, all kinds of cool stuff Good for that school. This is one of the newer schools, if not the newest. It'll be second after next year, but you can tell it. If not the newest, be second after next year, but you can tell it. I told them to feel blessed because all your equipment is still looks new. You've got the latest, you know, touch screen boards and most of the schools have that now, but it's just so new looking and the furniture is new looking and you can tell the kids are happy to be there. We really got to be buddies. By the end of that class All the students were sharing comments, since I had them for the entire afternoon. We had a little time to. I'll just call it goof off because I played them some of my favorite songs. I would play them some songs, see if they'd heard of it. They thought that was fun and they'd gotten all their work done anyway, and it was. You know, we got about 15 minutes at the end of class to get things ready. I really enjoyed it. Now I will tell you this and I've told the high school the high school that I love to go to and the middle schools, which I haven't been there as much. I told them guys, I'm really liking elementary school. This might be the beginning of the end that I go to high school and here's what I've caught myself doing. I didn't even know I would come to that conclusion, but here's what I've caught myself doing. This sub alert that I'm using. That's really fast and gives me the openings immediately. I have been skipping some of the middle school and high school openings, or I haven't been pouncing on them. I should say it that way. I haven't been plucking them off the schedule as soon as they show up, because I want to see if maybe some of these elementary school classes Now the elementary school classes there's no doubt in my mind now that they're the most popular among substitute teachers in my area, at least the ones that subscribe to SubAlert and things like that Because if I take the time to go research a teacher, it only takes me 30 seconds to go to the school website, see what they teach, see if it's in an area I like, and then maybe look them on Facebook. I can do all that in 30 seconds. If I wait 30 seconds on an elementary school job, it's gone. Somebody else has taken it. So from now on I'm going to pluck up the elementary school jobs and try to go there. So that's what's happened to me, guys. I believe, even after only three classes in elementary school, that that's my preference. Now I really like it. I like those kids. They are very receptive. Fifth grade, as you might expect, were much more. I don't want to just call them older, because they're older by definition, but they're much more mature than the third graders were. You could carry on different conversations with them. Oh, let me forget. I almost forgot. I told you I didn't want to forget. I've mentioned this on here before but one phrase that I like to use because it's used a lot in my area. This is a Southern type comment, but we say often you did real good. Well, think about it for a moment, because there's two mistakes in that sentence. You did real good. I ask it to middle schoolers all the time. I ask it to middle schoolers all the time I ask it to high schoolers all the time, usually they take a few seconds to think about it. Then they answer me. This week in this fifth grade class, shout out to that first block, because they were the ones that got it. I wrote it up on the board and I said tell me two things that are wrong with this. Hands went up everywhere and I just randomly picked what I thought was the first one and she said shouldn't real be really? And I'm thinking man, you might've answered that quicker than any other student in the county has. You're right, real is an adjective, really is an adverb, and that's where an adverb should go. So you did really good. Is there another mistake in there? And this is the one that usually they don't get. But another hand went up, not that many, but I saw another hand and that student said shouldn't that be well instead of good? You did really well. And I'm thinking oh my goodness, these fifth grade kids. I told them you got those answers right significantly sooner than anybody else. I asked so, guys, I had a blast. I am looking for elementary school jobs. I hope you're having the best of substitute teaching, you know, I just I was just so excited. I wanted to get on here and talk about it. So I'm not sure how much good advice I gave you, but elementary school I'm going back.