Sub Pack?

[NEOHIOSub]

As a substitute, I never really know where I'm going or what I'm teaching. It's not unusual to wake up at 5:30 and find out then where I'm going.

My question is this: What goes in a sub pack? I've tried bringing "emergency lesson plans" appropriate to the grade/subject I'm teaching, but I find they're never relevant to what the class has been discussing up to the teacher's absence. More often than not, the teacher has laid out good plans for me to follow, but there have been a few times (usually when the teacher has had a genuine no-time-to-prepare emergency) when I've been left high and dry.

If you had to take off in a hurry (sudden illness, death in the family, won the lottery :laugh:), what sort of "emergency" plans would you like to hear your sub brought? I'm putting together a very organized sub cabinate in my home office so that I can wake up, hear where I'm going, and grab the right folder on my way out the door. Being prepared is everything.

Thanks, folks! You all rock!

[seastarmath]

As a math teacher, I appreciate any computation practice you can give the kids. Maybe find a few games you can play that cover basic math skills. There are some jeopardy games online. You can make a portable board with cards to put in the pockets.

Keep a stash of hard candies. You would surprised what kids would do for a single piece of hard candy.

[Brit]

there are SO many good things you can do.

Invest in a pack of jumbo cards and a few dollar-store packs of regular ones. Learn at least 3 math games with cards. My favorite is greatest number: you decide how many digits the number you will make will have. you then randomly pull cards from the deck. aces=1, face cards and 10s=0. the goal is for students to arrange the numbers to make the largest possible number BUT, they can't move a number once they've written it down, and they don't know what's coming next.

e.g. four digits. you pull an ace, a 10, an 8 and a 9. the largest number you can make is 9810. BUT the kids need to write down each number in a place value spot as it is pulled, and they can't move numbers once they're down. SO other possible answers are 1089, 0189, 8910, etc.

there are whacks of good math games out there that use cards. you can play as a full class or in groups.

Language -- have 2-3 excellent quality read-alouds and activities that work with them. I carried "Fortunately" by Remy Phillip. It's a GREAT little chain-of-event pattern book. I also had black line masters of a pattern book template so the kids could write their own version of the book afterwards. The great thing is, because it's a chain of events book, the kids can write as many pages as they have time for -- good creative activity, but also good time filler.

whatever you do, have 1 solid langauge activity and one solid math activity that will work for anyone. don't try to specialize your stuff too much. Open-ended activites work better anyhow, as they are accessable to kids of ANY level in ANY class. I used both the activites above with grades 2-6 classes with equal success at each level (grade 1`s did the same activites, but I had to significantly modify them in September to match abilities -- in math, they told me which number was highest, and in language, they drew the pictures).

Use what`s in the classroom -- come up with games that use 100`s charts (I like to take #`s away and they have to guess what`s missing...or I flip them to make a pattern, and the kids need to guess the pattern (for higher grades, you can make it more complicated, like multiplying the # by 2 each time, or whatever)).

Also, especially for junior grades, wordles (word puzzles) are a good higher-order-thinking-skill activity. you can buy books of them and just put selections on the board for kids to solve. please do not confuse these with crosswords or word-searches. Those are okay, but rarely, if ever, access higher-order-thinking, which is what you want to always be doing as a teacher.

Oh -- and keep a good repetoire of rewards. I used games and wordles as class rewards for meeting my behaviour expectations. the kinds of games I did were things like around the world, or buzz (which is a math game) and the kids worked REALLY HARD to earn these "games".

*sigh* I almost miss subbing. almost.

[SS Rocks!]

Our school requires teachers to have two days worth of emergency lesson plans. Our entire team is supposed to know where the emergency plans are located.

In the event that the emergency plans spontaneously combusted, I (social studies teacher) would be happy with an informal discussion of some current event article in the newspaper. In an emergency situation, as long as their brains are working and they're under control, I'm happy.

[Flight]

My sub resources are packed in my car.

I carry information for several subjects (math, science, social studies, language) that I can use as a quick reference, just in case.

I have arrived at a school expecting to teach one subject only to be told of a greater need to teach another subject. I can run back to my car and switch items.

[Boxcar]

Awesome idea.

I'm lucky that co-teacher and assistent can carry on if I'm not there.

A lot of my ideas were already covered by the smart previous posters. So, I just wanted to post and let you know I think this is a really cool thing to do. I bet you could even market it if you wanted to do so.

[hweber]

For language arts, I used an activity called sketch to stretch. It can be used with any grade level. I select a picture book or fairly short book that can be read aloud. Give students a large sheet of construction paper and have them fold it into 8 boxes. The title and author of the book go in the first column and then start reading the book. Explain that good authors help you paint a picture in your mind while you are reading - a sort of video. Then start reading the book. Stop a 7 places along the way. After each stop, have the student draw a picture of what is happening in the story at that point. The eighth box is for their favorite part of the story. Then on the back of the paper, they write a summary of the story. One important fact - if you are using a book with artwork on the cover - cover it up so students do not have a preconceived notion of the story.

[Brit]

"sketch to stretch" is a really good example of a visualization activity, and you could extend it by requiring a retell using the pics after you're done reading.

For intermediate classes, you could do this with popular (appropriate) music, too -- take a copy of a song, the lyrics on overhead, have them visualize after each verse or so. a wicked one for older classes (in my opinion) is 2 15/16 by Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker. It's wildly all over the place, but has references you can pull out all over the place (including MC Escher). It's a lesson all in itself, that song. Great for inferring, connecting, and visualizing -- in a kind of acid-trip sort of way.

In case you're curious, here are the lyrics:

Lyrics to 2 15/16 :
You're like iodine chasing all the storms away
You're like a black-ops liquorice masquerade
You're like a buzz that's look for a bee
You're like a tack in a paper-clip factory
To me

You're like a diatribe calling on a quest for me
You're like the ideal rainy day activity
You're like a sine, emphasis in green
You're like lady bugs turnings into jelly beans

You're like iodine chasing all the storms away
You're like a black-ops liquorice masquerade
You're like a buzz that's look for a bee
You're like a tack in a paper-clip factory
To me

You're like a trance for looking at a better way
You're like a test maze keeping all the me's at bay
You're like a play that's like a pen
You're like M.C. Escher but a ten

You're like iodine chasing all the storms away
Yo're like a black-ops licorice masquerade
You're like a buzz that's look for a bee
You're like a tack in a paper-clip factory
To me

You're like 2 and 15 16ths
To the north east of me

Maybe I'm stretching a bit because I really like the song, but I really think it'd be a fun time-filler to pull this apart.