Substitute Teaching

I finally did it . . . I actually accepted a job for substitute teaching. I signed up for subbing back in January, and now that the school year is almost over, I finally had enough courage to accept a job. It was for Kindergarten and 1st grade combined, and it was an experience. I started the day by waking up at 5:30, so I would have plenty of time to get ready and could arrive at the school with time to spare (I was the first car in the parking lot except for the custodian). After signing in, I headed off for my classroom. I looked at the teacher's instructions, and they didn't make any sense to me. The room was so full of files, bins, and buckets that I couldn't figure out which ones held the assignments I needed to hand out. It wasn't long after the kids arrived that I knew I was in for a long day.
Let me make this easier and just list the three most interesting events of the day:
1. A little boy (kindergartner) started to cry uncontrollably because he tore pages out of a "Where's Waldo" book. A very energy-filled boy started tattling on him in a very loud voice, which made the other boy even more upset. I tried to calm the crying boy down while also trying to stop the other boy from his constant relating of the story. The first boy was crying so hard that he asked to go to the office to calm down. A girl volunteered to take him. (He apparently spends a good amount of time there because he's always getting in trouble, so maybe it's become a refuge for him.)
2. The above mentioned boy refused to leave the classroom when the first graders went to lunch and the kindergartners were going home for the day. He ran under a table and started yelling, "NO" at me when I asked him to come out. He then started to push all the chairs out from under the table. If they didn't fall over the first time he pushed, he tried harder the second time so that they did. He then came out from under the table, proceeded to pick up a chair, and then threw it. It took three adults (me, the T.A., and some other woman) to coax him out of the room. The T.A. then mentioned that she didn't think he'd taken his meds that day.
3. A little girl farted really loud during story time . . . I did a really good job keeping a straight face.