So take the time now and you’ll be very thankful for when you are out that you just have to spend 10 minutes editing a few activities. Boom, you’re done.
~ Zeba from Ep. 99 of The Kindergarten Cafe Podcast
Episode Summary
Let’s face it…you will have to miss a day of school and you never know who’s going to walk through the door as your sub. That’s why creating clear, simple, and effective sub plans is a must! Not just for your sanity, but to make the day run smoothly for your students and the sub. Whether you’re planning ahead or need last-minute ideas, this episode will help you prep once and reuse all year long.
In this episode I share:
- What routines and details you should always include
- Why familiar activities (like Bingo and dice games) are your secret weapon
- How I set up an emergency sub tub that saves me every time
- The real-life situations that made me so glad I had it all ready!
Related Episodes:
Resources:
- Sub Tub Bundle | Planning for a Substitute | Easy Sub Plans
- Editable Substitute Binder | Helpful Classroom Information for a Sub
- Emergency Lesson Sub Plans and Activities for a Substitute Teacher
Kindergarten Sub Tub Bundle
Connect with Zeba:
- Instagram – @kindergartencafe
- Facebook – @kindergartencafe
- Website – www.kindergartencafe.org
- Tik Tok – @kindergartencafe
Read the Transcript
[00:00:00] Hey, teacher friends. It’s Zeba from Kindergarten Cafe, and today we’re talking about foolproof sub plans because you will get sick and it’s really good to have sub plans that work smarter, not harder, and that better support not only you, but your sub. So let’s get into it.
[00:00:00] How to create simple yet effective sub plans. So when we write a sub plan, you wanna keep in mind that literally anyone could be stepping in to be your sub. This is not a diss to anyone that’s a sub. I was a sub. Like it could be someone amazing. It could be someone who’s trained to be a teacher. But it also could be someone straight out of high school who’s not trained to be a teacher and maybe is not even interested in education, but they’re doing this to fill their time.
Like, that’s fine, we need subs. But all I’m saying is we wanna write our sub plans for someone assuming that they don’t know the ins and outs of education because they don’t have to, to be a sub. So we.
Outline the routines in our sub plan. For example, don’t just write dismissal. Be specific at 2 45 students line up at the back door, so and so, you know.
The announcement will call for the car pickup and the bus students. And when those students get called, those students can [00:01:00] walk down the hallway to blah, blah, blah. Like whatever it is that your routine is for dismissal. Make it clear what it is for the sub. Don’t just write dismissal even if you’re like, well, my students will know, it doesn’t matter.
Write it down. Be specific. A lot of the like. Routines. I write a lot of extra detail for like emergency routines or dismissal routines or classroom management, that kind of stuff. I put in my sub binder if you wanna check that out and have edible sub binder notes and things that you can use mine as like a starting point.
You can get my sub binder. Or you can get the bundle that has the sub binder and the lesson plans and activities as well. But in that sub binder I also include some information about students. I put in like an envelope, and I say I put a class list in there and I just write quickly next to the names, like, who are the students that need extra support?
Who are the good helpers? I even put that on the less on the sub plans themselves that say [00:02:00] like, so and so, and Jack and Jill are really good helpers. I also put in the notes in the sub binder, like, are there any students learning English? Things like that. So again, the more specific that you can be, the better.
The other thing that I recommend doing for foolproof sub plans is having familiar activities for students. The less instruction that the sub has to give, the better. Use activities that your students already know. But you can change out the content for whatever’s going on with what they’re learning about.
This is why I love doing bingo games. I have a whole bingo pack that you can get that has the spectrum of activities for kindergarten, like all the kindergarten content in bingo form. But that way the kids know how to. You play bingo once with them and then they’ll know how to play bingo. And then anytime you have a sub, just pull out one of the Bingo games and change it up for whatever content you’re learning about.
And they, that’s a great time filler right there. It’s [00:03:00] engaging, it’s related to academics. It, and it’ll be easy for the kids to be expected ’cause they’ll already know what to do. Another thing that I love pulling out for subs are my dice games. I have monthly dice games, and so it’s like the same games but different monthly themes.
Roll and bright, adding one using with one dice or adding two, some addition games, partner rolling cover, that kind of thing. . You can get that whole monthly dice pack bundle in my shop. And then you can just pull out, okay, you’re, I gonna be out for a day in October.
Boom, grab the October dice games, put them out for the sub. There’s your math. Boom done. Easy peasy. And the kids will already have known how to do it. ’cause you’ll just have to do it once and then they’ll know how to do it. I mean, the more you’ll give a reminder, but they will have seen it before, so it won’t be like teaching something brand new to them.
And that’s where you can run in trouble with sub plans. So that’s why it’s good to pick activities that, yes, you’ll have to teach a [00:04:00] basic refresher or introduce the version they’re using that day, but they know the basic structure of how to play bingo or how to do roll and write.
You can also like, as you get later on in the year, you can stick to your routines, which is a good idea for the most part. So if you do math stations, you could, if you feel comfortable it depends on the group. Is that how I feel? You could leave the math stations for them. You could leave a math book to start out the math lesson and then have ’em go off and do the dice games, or go off and do the math stations for reading.
Read a book to them, and then have them go off and do their reading just like they would if you were here. It’s just that the sub isn’t going to be doing like a full on reading lesson.
But the more that you can keep the routine instead of doing a whole brand new activity, the better. So having kids go off and read in their reading spots is good. And like I said, be very specific about what that means. How they won’t necessarily be at their desk with their name tag and how they should be reading quietly.
Like what are the expectations so [00:05:00] that the sub knows and the kids can’t trick the sub saying like, oh no, we always get to do this. Like, no, you don’t get to read with stuffed animals every day. Nice try. And what’s great is that you can take those lesson plans that you writing with all the details and all of the, you know, information on routines and you can use them again and again, have that be a template. I talk a lot about this in a previous episode, how to work smarter in a harder when planning for a sub, but having a sub tub, an emergency sub plans is the game changer.
So every year at the start of school year, I adapt my, I create, I don’t create new every year, but I take my. I make sure to have emergency sub plans every year that has the new, the, you know, the current Monday schedule in place, the current Tuesday schedule Wednesday schedule Thursday schedule Friday schedule.
And I write out the detailed description of [00:06:00] the routines and I take that and I make a copy of it every time I’m making a new sub plan. And all I do is switch out like a couple of the activities. For the Monday that I’m out, I change out the couple of activities on the Monday sub plan, and boom, I’m ready to go.
It takes me 10 minutes. I’m not even kidding to make sub plans because all I’m doing is switching out a couple activities for what I wanna do that week based on the curriculum, based on what they’re learning, based on things I have to get done. And. There. It’s, so if you want those emergency lesson plans, like I said, you can get them in my sub tub bundle.
The other thing I have in the sub tub is actual activities that you can grab and go and you can use at any point in the year. And there are activities that aren’t engaging, but are not difficult to explain or set up or any of that. And so highly recommend having that ready to go so you can just grab and go with those activities and they’re really helpful if you’re out.
Like last minute, like you wake up at 3:00 AM with stomach bug because that in fact happened to me [00:07:00] this year and it was not pretty. Or one day I woke up at. Three, I think it was like 3:00 AM or 1:00 AM I don’t know to my husband having kidney stone pain. And we had to go to the emergency room and I literally wasn’t able to make sub plans because we were in the emergency room until like eight in the morning or something like that.
Or even nine. Like I literally couldn’t make sub plans. And so I had already shared my emergency sub plans with my team and my kindergarten assistant, and. I texted them and said, I’m in the emergency room with my husband and I can’t make sub plans. Please use the emergency plans. And they did. Um, they, they made it work.
And so because I had that ready to go and in the emergency plans, like I said, it’s very simple activities that can be used. Any point they’re, all the activities can be found in my sub tub. So all they had to do was go to sub tub, find the activity, pull it out, boom. Done. Easy peasy. So I highly recommend doing all that towards the beginning of the year because you just never know when you’re going to need it.
So take [00:08:00] the time now and you’ll be very thankful for when you are out, that you just have to spend 10 minutes editing a few activities, boom, you’re done, and that you have a grab and go box of activities that you can use for subs.
If you are looking for more support, like I said, I have a whole other episode on planning for a sub and all of that. So, this was focused more on how to make the lesson plans that are foolproof. And the other one is more about like in general planning for a sub, like how to work smarter, not harder.
So check that out if you need, and either way, definitely send me a message on Instagram to let me know you’re listening. You’re enjoying the episode. You can use the code word sub to let me know. You’ve been listening to this episode and I’d love to hear from you.