It was Scott-Free day

Not in a good way…Scott didn’t come to school today and even though I knew that in advance I felt weird about today…. It’s one of those days where you just can’t nail it, but something feels off…We started the day with a little reading… Mr. Manor read Hollis and it was weird to listen to the story. Sometimes Scott reads but it just was different with a sub. It was also weird for once being on the other side of a “sub” day. As a kid, this day meant time off, a break from the regular schoolwork or in some cases… more work than a regular day. If we were really lucky, it meant a day of movies. But here I was on the other side, having to be the consistency for these kids. I wouldn’t let them have a day off because I was still there. They would get the work done and they would do it well. As we were finishing up the Ebenezer lesson, I really got to see how excited they could get about learning. It was 5 guilty vs 18 innocent and they were ready to duke it out. Both sides could prove their reasoning and we were on the verge of a true court trial when suddenly… I realized, crap, it was lunchtime. Yes, I said that. I have never wanted to skip a meal before in my life but MAN did I not want to stop this lesson. They were so into the lesson and I was so into pushing them that it almost felt physically painful to stop them. I knew after lunch I wouldn’t really have to worry about Scott not being there since we had a special guest coming to talk to the kids. We had a revolutionary war “soldier” coming to talk to them. It was hilarious, they all were so excited to have their questions answered, to be shown time period artifacts and best of all… They got to hold a revolutionary musket. I mean does it get any better than that? Pretty sure it doesn’t. Really the only problem of the day came between 2pm and 2:30pm. I didn’t realize the soldier would finish with so much time before the end of school… So first I had each kid debrief and share what they learned from the soldier… and it was still only 2:20… 10 more minutes… I had NO idea how to fill the rest of the time, and it didn’t help that I had intern tasks like their Friday folders to fill with 3 different papers… I felt like a chicken with their head cut off because I was just trying to get them to stay focused… me to fill the folders and somehow maintain control…. Needless to say when I left it was just a weird end of the day… I went across the hall to check in on Emily, no not myself, my co-5th grade intern who also had a sub. Her mentor was sick so both of us were experiencing the same thing of having a sub for the first time. I really like having Em across the hall because I can see how she is doing and whether or not we are in the same place on life. The one thing I learned today is that my mentality of not skipping classes or responsibilities will continue on into my career because just like a newborn baby… Kids need consistency in their lives and as an adult they see every single day, they need less sub and more reg. So pretty much for the next ___ years I cannot get sick, miss work, have life responsibilities that will conflict with work… yeah, right… NOT