Where is the Teacher?

This past weekend I went out of town. Because of this I missed a day of work, something that rarely happens. My director was my substitute, and she came in the day before, and let the class know she would be taking my place for the day. Wow! Was my class ever excited. They immediately wanted to count how many sleeps it would be until Mrs. S was their teacher. They began to wonder aloud..."I wonder what Mrs. S. will do in our class?" As their grown-ups arrived, each child excitedly exclaimed that they were having a substitute teacher on Friday.

Can I just say I was a little put out? Not one child said they would miss me. No one asked why I wouldn't be there. No one was unsure about having a different teacher. Everyone was gung-ho to have someone different in the classroom. So, while I should have been relieved to leave my class in such good hands, I was harboring some bitterness towards the director, who I know is an amazing teacher. I was going to have to win them back, but Mrs. S. is so good, that was going to be a hard battle.

So, off I went to Mexico.

I came back, unsure of what my reception would be. Would they be sad I was back? Would they ask when the next time would be that Mrs. S. would be their teacher? Would they think I was boring now? Less funny? Less awesome? (Mrs. S. seriously rocks).

I walked in to find written on my white board: "Where is Mrs. V?" with these answers written underneath...

She went to see Santa.

She might go to Dinosaur Land.

She went to Las Vegas.

She went to see "Princesses on Ice".

She went to the zoo.

She is on an island.

She went to see the Itsy Bitsy Spider.

She's at Disneyland.

She went to the stars.

Of course Mrs. S. would make her time in my classroom all about me. She knew my kids would be tentative, and she helped them deal with it.

As the kids arrived with their parents, here are some of the questions their parents asked...

"How was Disneyland?"

"What island did you visit?"

"Did you go to a planetarium?"

"Where is Dinosaur Land?"

"Um, you took the day off to see Santa??"

How funny that once the kids thought about where I might be, it became a reality to them. This point was illustrated when a student asked me about a new necklace that I was wearing, one that I had gotten while I was in Mexico. When I started to tell the story about this piece of jewelry, she immediately tuned me out and said, "Did you get it at "Princesses on Ice?" Yep, sure.

Mrs. S. also had the kids make me a "Spooky Chair". They decorated a chair with all kinds of scary spider webs, spiders, bats (all Halloween type stuff), bugs, etc. When it was all decorated, they hid it. The big plan was that I would sit on this spooky chair at snack time and get the tuna salad scared out of me.

They were so excited to scare me, they pointed out the chair right away. I was appropriately scared, and they all laughed and laughed, after they assured me that it was all pretend scary stuff. I sat on the spooky chair at snack - and assured them that sitting on a humongous plastic spider was indeed quite comfortable.

(Thanks, Kate! You rock!)