Yoranda Kilgo is an elementary school teacher. Last year, she taught kindergarten. She says the first few days of school are really important.

The first day, it's kind of like a shock. Like, I don't know what's happening. I don't know what's going on. It's normally the second day that it's like, oh, no, I got to go back. And that wasn't just a one-off thing.

Right, it wasn't just like a fun day.

I have to go here five days a week now.

So typically the first day is kind of like they're understanding what's going on in the second day.

It is like crazy town, crying, upset, wondering why I got to stay.

So how do you get a group of kids, some of whom have never been to school before, to buy in to the whole idea? Luckily, Yoranda has a superpower. I love teaching kids. So as a result of that, I think they get it. I'm going to keep it real with you. We're going to have a blast.

I'm going to teach you a song. I'm going to dance. I'm going to be silly. I want to laugh. I love to hear

kids laugh. I think that's what they remember most. And she says it doesn't take them too long to get

comfortable, sometimes too comfortable. Kindergarteners are going to tell you every single thing. They will gas you up. It is, oh, I love your shoes, Ms. Kilgo. In the very next minute, it can be, are you pregnant? And I pat my belly. They just say what comes to their brain is I'm comfortable, so I'm going to laugh, I'm going to snore, I'm going to ask my teacher the questions,

I'm going to let my friends know how I feel, because this is my home.

I'm Dan Heath, and this is what it's like to be. In every episode, we walk in the shoes of someone from a different profession, a Christmas tree farmer, a marine biologist, a TV meteorologist. We want to know

what they do all day at work. Today we'll ask Yoronda Kilgo what it's like to be an elementary school teacher.

We'll talk about the teacher who inspired her to teach, what it's like to tell parents something

they don't want to hear about their kids, and what happened when raw sewage flooded her

classroom? Stay with us.

Uranda said her favorite lessons to teach are the ones that combine literacy and math,

so kids start to see that they go together.

I love literacy. I just love it so much. And any part of my day, I always try to incorporate it.

But math is my favorite way to show my student that you, kindergarten, first, second, whatever, that reading is everywhere.

So my favorite standards in the whole world are my math standards where we are teaching them story problems and in my story problems i love to incorporate those irregular high frequency words

which are words that don't follow the rules like the we know t says t h says and e says eh it don't say

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