phew!

this has been a crazy, crazy day.  it all started yesterday when i discovered that our fantastic music teacher, who is great with my four-year-olds, said he wouldn't be in today.  he asked if i'd rather entrust my kids to a sub who likely doesn't know what they are doing and/or how to work with little guys and/or how to do anything musical, or would i prefer to keep them in the room.  i opted for the latter choice.  being fairly musical, i figured i could run my own music lesson (plus, bonus!  a couple mondays ago i had to sit through a whole day of how to run a music lesson!).  then i found out that the other homeroom teacher would be out in the morning for an appointment, so i would be running morning circle time alone.  womp womp.  but i was ready.  so ready.

i went straight home and practiced "puff the magic dragon" on my guitar to play it with the kids (they do that song in music, and know basically all of the words), and looked over the rhyme they were going to learn in morning circle.  i was pumped.  i got my stuff packed up and ready to roll, then hit the sack.

thank GOODNESS i was so prepared.  and that the sun shines bright in my bedroom.  and i'm naturally an early riser.  because this fine morning, my alarm didn't go off.  i woke up lazily, checked out my clock, saw it was 7:32 am, and my thought process went something like this: huh, really?  7:32?  is it a saturday?  it's going to be so nice today.  should i go back to bed?  get up?  wasn't i going to do something?  OH EXPLETIVE IT'S WEDNESDAY AND I SHOULD ALREADY BE AT SCHOOL!  EXPLETIVE EXPLETIVE EXPLETIVE!

so i bolted out of bed, threw on whatever pants were closest to my hand, the shoes that were on the floor, the first clean shirt i could find, pulled a container of some kind of leftovers out of my fridge, threw my stuff in my bag, ran back to grab my guitar, and was out the door and at the school by 7:46.

i was still in "yikes yikes yikes why didn't i think to set my alarm i think i'm still tired but also totally jazzed about today" mode by the time morning circle came along, and (relief!) it went totally well!  the kids listened, they enjoyed the rhyme, and during music they did exactly what i asked them to do.  and seemed to have some fun.  and pretty much rocked "puff the magic dragon."  it was amazing.

future student teachers - the moral of this story is ALWAYS PLAN AHEAD.  because you, too, may wake up late on a day where you are the only teacher around with 19 kids waiting to hear what you have in store for them.