Flying Solo

My mom, who is the Early Childhood Coordinator at Charleston Development Academy also teaches at an after school tutoring program at the school I am currently interning at, Chicora Elementary every Tuesday and Thursday from 2:45pm to 4:45pm with a partner teacher from Charleston Development Academy. Charleston Development Academy does not dismiss until 3:00pm so my mom has asked if I would watch her tutoring class from 2:45pm to roughly 3:15 – 3:30 pm until she can arrive. This past Thursday however 3:30pm came and went and she had not arrived yet, and on this particular day, I did not have my cell phone with me so I was unable to contact her about her whereabouts or any instructions I was to have with her class. The after school class works from assignment books that my mother keeps with her, and usually when I watch her students I will let them read books or give them simple math problems to solve. However by 3:30pm came and went, and the students were getting restless and unruly, and I had find something to do to keep the students from getting, well, out of control. There were a few games and activities I had remembered learning about at different staff professional development sessions that I could try and get the students to participate in (and it didn’t make my situation any simplier that I had to come up with on the spot an activity that a first grader, two second graders, two third graders, and two fifth graders could all find equally engaging). My first idea was “my name is (alphabet letter) and I like (same alphabet letter)” which involved having a group seated in a circle and passing around a ball like a “hot-potato” and each member in the group and beginning with the letter “A” (and continuing though the alphabet) have each student give themselves a name and a “thing that they like” both starting with the same letter. The idea of handling a beach ball while learning got the student genuinely excited and at least cooperative to play, and it worked... for about 10 minutes. By the time we had reached "P" the students were getting