Flying Solo

Today I was the substitute for my mentor teacher. I expected it to go just as other days had, I was supposed to have a parent helper and our visiting artist was coming just as she did every day for the last month. I was also starting a new part of a lesson with half of the classes. We introduced clay today for K through 2nd grade, and although the Kinders used model magic it was still very teacher involvement heavy. I feel like instruction went well, but the learners were very aware that things were a little different. I feel that they were more rowdy today. For this placement my mentor and I have decided on a co-teaching model, sometimes it is her supporting me, or me supporting her and other times we bounce back and forth, we have also taught simultaneously for groups. So all of this did not happen during today. It was only me and for the clay bit, an awesome parent helper. Today has made me realize why parent helpers are so very important, especially with certain materials. For most of the classes we have jobs set up for each numbered seat at the color coordinated tables, but distributing clay really does not fit well into that model. This usually makes material gathering go a lot smoother and invests the learners in the whole process.  I really feel like the allotted time for electives is way too short for elementary. I do not know what would be the best way to solve this problem but I feel like there is a solution out there somewhere.  This rotating schedule with each class of the grade level works for organization and space but is really limiting in learner engagement and work time. Some learners breeze right through the work and usually finish with the day's task before time is up, but there are many that usually take the entire class period and have a difficult time stopping where they are to continue another day (that may be next week).
The end of the day brought extreme exhaustion and landed me in bed way before my normal time.
The time is growing near when I will be looking for my own classroom to invite learners to make art. I wonder what and where it will be.