Phew! I am sooooooooooo tired! Teaching grade one is exhausting - or at least, this class is. Yesterday was Sports Day at Kawungan and I thought it would be easy money and that there was no way I would be earning my money that day. Boy, was I wrong! I was in charge of leading about 60 grade one boys around to each of the six rotations (track and field stations) and making sure that they sat still while they waited their turns. Oh my goodness - boys do NOT sit still. Luise, who was in charge of one of the stations, told me later that they were so glad once the six year old boys had passed by - nothing could be as bad as that was, she said. By the time the day was over (Sports Day was for the whole day), I was so exhausted, all I wanted to do was come home and flake out.
Dad spent some time yesterday doing more census stuff. He had to go around to some businesses to speak to the owners about what they have to do re: the census. They generally don't like having to do the work, but it's the law, so they have to do it.
Dad and I went to the Family History Centre last night and I worked on my Grandpa Dunkley's line as I need to get the marriage certificate for my great grandmother and great grandfather on Grandpa Terry's side before I can do any more on that side. I did find some more info about one of my Grandpa Dunkley's aunts - I had been given three names for the same person (Irene W and Undine J and Undine Irene) so I wanted to find out more about that. I went on ancestry.com and found out that her name was actually Undine Irene and I also found out her death date. It's great when I can add more info to the family tree.
Today was organized chaos - sort of. We had parade (assembly), asking the children about their fire engines they created earlier this week, music, more asking, writing about our day yesterday (while three children completed their fire engines), library, grammar, and out onto the sports field for the results of the Sports Day. After school, I had to mark the fire trucks plus their designs. Rachael, the grade one teacher I am supplying for, won't be in until at least next Tuesday, so she asked me if I would mark them. I had a criteria sheet to check off - I think that I was a bit generous, but Rachael can look at the designs and see what she thinks and adjust the marks as she feels necessary. I never worried too much about marks in these kinds of things when I had my own classes - I figured that if they made an effort, that they deserved at least a 'C'. A couple of the kids today got an A and some Bs and Cs and a couple of Ds. Doing the marking took me back to when I used to do it in my classrooms in Canada, especially in grade two where we did a lot of building.
I told the teachers and admin about the job at Torquay today - they were all happy for me, but they were also disappointed that I was going. Funnily enough, this week has been really good in the grade one team - the team seems to be much more accepting of me and Luise even gave me a hug today when I told her I was leaving because I had gotten a job for the rest of the year. I was quite taken aback at first - but it was nice to know that she was disappointed that I wasn't going to be able to take her class in October. She said that she was also going to tell me today that Rachael had told her that I could have her (Rachael's) five week contract later on this year (originally, Rachael had asked her friend to do the contract, but then her friend was given a job for the rest of the year at another school). That would have been nice, but that still was only 13 weeks of full-time teaching and Torquay is offering me 22 weeks. I did tell Leanne, the Deputy Principal at Kawungan, to keep me in mind for next year.
Today, Dad spent some time working outside spraying for bugs and spraying weeds. He also spent some time researching cruise control for our car. Both Dad and I find that it's easy to speed in this car - it really sneaks up on you and you don't even realize it. A few people have told us that the cops will nab you here if you speed, so we want to make sure we don't get a ticket. :-)
Tonight, at SES, they spent the whole night talking about 'Traffic Control' theory. They talked about the rules and regulations to stop traffic on a road or highway (in case of an accident). Dad said it was pretty routine, boring stuff, but sometimes the training is more necessary than exciting.
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