Monday, Monday!

UGH! The beginning of fall, weather changes, end of a full moon (last week I think), and a variety of other things besides being a darn Monday. I have been trying REALLY REALLY hard lately to not be so cynical and grumpy. However, after today, I decided to give myself just one more pity party before I swore off all grumpiness & grouchy moods. When I first walked into school today (and I was early today which was making me happy!) I was told that I'd be subbing today. Now, I'm NOT a substitute, nor did I care to hear those words today. The secretary said that a teacher called in sick at the last minute, so there were no subs avaiable and the other teacher they would have pulled from our building was also absent. Hmmm . . .

I went through this my first year teaching. I was new, just happy to have a paycheck and really didn't have much of a job title, so I just did as was told. However, after almost a full 9 weeks of constant subbing and being thrown around from room to room, I was exhausted, worn out and feeling like my job was a substitute rather than an academic support teacher. Finally, I got a bit of a stronger backbone and unbit my tongue to express my frustration with subbing so much and feeling as if they really did not try to get anyone else to sub.

So, I had to sub today, which REALLY ticked me off and threw me off completely what I had planned on doing. I worked all Friday evening (while my family went to the football game without me) and all weekend long on specific activities for my students this week. I try my hardest to fill each moment with them with specific activities to target their learning needs. (And, maybe I didn't use ALL weekend as we did have a busy Saturday.) So, I threw those plans in the trash and headed down to the classroom of the teacher I was subbing for. As I arrived there, I was called over the intercom to tell me that I could call this teacher to get some plans. Hmmm.. . is that really MY job to call her and ask for sub plans!!!! UGH!

Besides that, I had door duty at exactly the same time, so I rushed outside to tend to my duties and be around the kids because that's what really calms me down and helps me focus. As I'm out there, I get an offer from someone to take over my duty just as soon as the bells rings. Again, nice timing! So, I lead my class down the hallway toward our classroom for the day. Ah. . . what to do. The sub from the other classroom tried to come next door and help me but we could not find a darn thing. Thank goodness we found a schedule for the day, although it was marked up with last weeks plans.

Ah. . . a Monday! We made it through the day, with lots of "pulling ideas from my head" and resources that I didn't know I had, but we made it. Thank GOD for having a SMART board. I figured that if they didn't care to leave plans, than they must not care what we did all day. We tried to get some journaling done, and math games, but I was REALLY frustrated with the lack of guidance that was given for me to guide the students today. So, tomorrow has GOT to get better is all I kept telling myself all day long. It was like a mantra! :) I had a meeting after school on how to create & maintain blogs for my school, so I wsa really late picking the boys up from daycare, throwing my whole day even more off. Days like this, I enjoy being with them and also enjoy their fun little attitudes that brighten my day.