First day of substitute teaching!

I decided a while ago that it would be a good idea for me to start subbing once a week for the next little while. This will allow us to earn some extra money that we can put into savings or use for home improvements.

I had my first substitute teaching experience yesterday. It went very well and I'm glad because I was a little nervous and wasn't quite sure what to expect. Of course, the night before, Anna decided to wake up right when we were about to go to bed and it took over an hour to get her back to sleep, so I was so tired the whole day! I got there and found my room and had to log in to the computer to take attendance. Well, I was trying to figure it out, the computer was being so slow. The kids start coming in, I finally got it, and then my foot hit the power cord that was on the floor and shut the whole thing off. Figures, right? Well, it was a Friday before a week long vacation and the teacher actually gave them a big, long assignment due at the end of class. I kind of felt bad for the kids.

Overall, subbing was easy. I just kind of sat there in front of the class and made sure they did their work and didn't get too out of hand. There were some funny instances that I want to share.

1. My personal favorite: a student opens the door, sees me and not his teacher and says, "Whoa, is it just me, or did Mrs. Sell just get a lot hotter?!" Then closes the door and comes back a minute later.

2. A guy and girl were passing a note, right in front of me. I went up and took the note away and the kid says, "What? You didn't say we couldn't pass notes!" I told him, that should be a given that you don't do that during class.

3. One kid didn't want to do his work, so he kept raising his hand to ask me questions like, "Do you think the world will really end in 2012? Or "Did you vote yes or no on Prop 8?"

Then, there are always the shockers:

1. One guy was kind of trying to hit on this girl, but she had a girlfriend...and a boyfriend. She was bi apparently. It was odd, because she looked like a teacher's pet kind of girl.

2. All the swearing, but I wasn't too shocked by it, just when one of the students called the absent teacher the B-word. Hmmmm...

Not having worked in a year and a half and then working yesterday, made me extremely grateful that I get to be a stay-at-home-mom. If I had to go to work everyday and leave Anna with someone else, I would miss out on so much of her life. I'm so grateful to get to be home with her. I love being a stay-at-home-mom. I love seeing all the cute things Anna does and telling Dan about them. I love creating our house into a home. Working yesterday also made me so grateful that Dan works hard every day and that he has a good job that allows me to stay home.

Hopefully, the rest of my subbing experiences will be positive and it will be a good experience overall.