Great, it was time for gym class. I slowly tied my shoes, not wanting to walk into the gym with a teacher I hated. Instead I lagged behind, talking to my friends. But when I walked into the gym with the rest of my kindergarten class, I was in for a surprise! Standing in mean, grouchy, old Ms. Whatshername’s spot, was a new teacher! A new gym teacher, it was like a dream come true!

“Hello class, I’m your substitute teacher for today.”

Darn it. He was only a substitute.

“Do you guys like to run?” He asked. The class groaned, and my hopes for a good day in gym were shattered.

“C’mon now, I promise it will be fun! Do you guys like NASCAR?” The class cheered, we were excited now! Someone asked, “Are you going to take us to a NASCAR race?” Everyone got really excited then, and chatter filled the room.

“Well, not exactly, but I have something even better!”
Without explaining, he used little, plastic, orange cones to make a circle in the middle of the gym. Then he told us to all stand inside the circle. Now we were really confused! Then he explained:

“All right, class who wants to be a NASCAR driver today?!” We all cheered at the thought!

“Good! I’m going to be the pace car; do you all know what that is?” We responded with muffled yes’s and no’s.

“That’s the slow, boring car that has to lead all the racecars. I’m going to do one lap around the track, and then when I wave the green flag, everyone will take off running! Remember, this is a race, so you have to run fast as you can! Is everyone ready?”

We all lined up behind him and did one, slow, walking lap around the “track.”Then he carefully pulled into the pits, waved the green flag, and we were off! Running as fast as our little legs would carry us, around and around, lap after lap. We were getting closer, closer, almost there! Uh-oh, yellow flag! Two boys ran into each other, and they were out of the race. The green flag resumed, then the white, only one more lap! Finally the checkered flag waved, and we finished the race, tired but excited. It had been a good day in gym after all.