Wait, What is TK?

Using Wire Shelves for PE Equipment Storage

What I Learned:  My first subbing assignment was for what I thought was a kindergarten classroom... it turned out to be a TK, Transitional Kindergarten.  So, this means that some of my 21 kindergartners were younger than your average 5 year old student.  All day kinder class is hard enough for the 5 year olds and it really seemed to take its toll on the 4 year olds toward the end of the day.  Many were complaining of being tired and wanting to go home.  However, this wasn't the worst part of our day.  Despite letting every student go to the bathroom when they asked me, one student didn't make it to the bathroom in time and we needed the janitor to come clean up the floor.  In a related story, one student didn't ask me to use the restroom but went anyways... he got left behind.  I didn't know he was in there, and when the dance teacher showed up to take all of the students to a different classroom for dance class, this student got left behind!!! I was so embarrassed when the school's principal showed up to dance class with this student in tow!  You better believe I learned to always count heads before going anywhere around campus.

What I Changed: The sub plans called for me to teach the students PE by taking them to do 4 laps around the yard.  I took liberty with this time and instead taught the kids how to play Shadow Tag.  This is a version of tag that does not allow for any physical contact between the students; rather, the students run around and jump on each others shadows.  If your shadow is jumped on, you are not "out;" instead, if you do 10 jumping jacks you are unfrozen and back to chasing shadows. The students did well with this.  Some of them got the concept and were off chasing other students.  Those who didn't get the concept just chased me around and stopped to do jumping jacks whenever I did.  Either way they got their time PE in.

What I Will Use:  The teacher records the students' behaviors daily by using different color bingo daubers.  It was fast, accurate, and could even be done by students (upper grade level).  This teacher's daily behavior charts that go home to the parents inside the homework folders are not weekly but rather monthly records.  I like the idea that students can witness trends over time.  I think this would be successful at any grade level, and if homework folders are located near where the students moved their names up and down on the classroom behavior chart, it will be even easier to record daily behaviors.

When working with these transitional kindergartners I realized that they could not read their own names on the different clothes pins used on the classroom behavior chart.  This also means that the students are unaware of when their names are moved up or moved down on this chart.  Perhaps adding photos of the students to each clip will give them more accountability and allow for them to move their own clips up or down on the behavior chart.