On Duty

3 times a week I'm on duty, teacher supervison duty. Basically that means that I am one of several teachers who are out in the play yard making sure that the kids are doing what they are supposed to be doing and keeping them out of harm's way. These are just a few observations of my interactions with the kids during yard duty.

-dismissed the entire upstairs floor
-made sure that no one was hiding inside
-walked one class down the stairs to prevent running and chaos
-untangled bouncy balls on elastic strings
-taken away a bottle from a group playing spin the bottle
-taught a girl how to properly dribble a basketball so that it wouldn't get away from her
-broken up a 'secret' club (read - exclusive hurting others' feelings)
-broken up a physical fight
-broken up a game of truth or dare
-had kids assist with erasing the inappropriate chalk grafitti
-discussed with one child how yes indeed, those clouds really looked real
-directed the traffic on the monkey bars
-sent one child in for a band-aid for a skinned knee
-tracked how many students were in and out of the building to use the washroom
-decided which two students would be allowed to hold the door when we all went back inside
-blew the whistle to signal going in time
-supervised that they were going in the building okay
-wrote out lunch violations for those who were fighting

Oh yes, and all of this happened over the course of one lunch period.