Maybe this post should be in my other blog

I don't know about you, but I just CAN'T take time off from work. It's not because the boss won't let me. It's just the fact that I can't seem to rationalize any good reason to have time off. Even if I'm sick, I'll still try to make it in to work.

One of the reasons that I seem reluctant to take a day off is the amount of prep time. Planning my own lessons takes a certain amount of time, but planning lessons for a substitute teacher can be extremely difficult. Depending on the sub, I may or may not be able to teach the students anything. Because this town is so small, we just pretty much accept anybody as a sub. The result is that most of our subs are glorified babysitters. To top it all off, some of them can't even do that job well.

Well, the past few weeks have been very draining. And, after waking up each morning and feeling like I don't have the energy to go into work, I finally decided to take a day off. Yup, you heard me, I took a day off. So, a week from tomorrow, I'll be relaxing at home. That's right folks, I can't even take a day off when I'm exhausted. So, I know I'll be tired next week, so why not take Friday off. (Actually, the real plan was to take Monday off, but so many staff members are taking that day off, any sub left would be so bad, I don't want them in my classroom.)

The nice thing about scheduling the day off, is that I can plan appropriately. No lectures, nothing that requires any real set-up, just some review. And as it so happens, I've pretty much scheduled Friday as a review day. Some classes will have worksheets, other's will have more fun review activities.

The only problem comes with my first two classes. Earth Science and Chemistry. Both have a lecture scheduled as part of the normal lesson plan. But because I'm going to be gone, I need to come up with an activity that will work if only part of the chapter is covered. Earth Science will be about half-way through the chapter on weathering and erosion, and Chemistry will be about 1/3 of the way through discussing the properties of the various groups on the periodic table (which will probably mean we will be starting the nonmetals.) I'm not so worried about ESCI, but I'll definitely have to be thinking about Chemistry.

Chemistry in fact, is on a very, very, short lead. Tomorrow, I'm going to be putting them in a seating chart, the first time in 6 years that I've had to put Juniors and Seniors in a seating chart. It's very sad, because my 7th graders are more mature and better behaved than the Juniors and Seniors.

Oh well, hopefully I'll have a non-school related post tomorrow. Maybe I'll discuss what I'll be doing during the Superbowl!