21 days.
This is the number of days of sub plans I had to write my last year of teaching.
That means 12% of my instructional days were completed by a substitute.
And 100% of these days were planned days out. I was sick for zero days that year. These were CDE competitions, conventions, conferences and professional development meetings.
That means for 21 days I had to spell out the ins and outs of my classroom to another individual.
Luckily for you, The Owl’s Nest has SUBSTITUTE FRIENDLY LESSONS within the Introduction to AFNR curriculum. This means our resources were designed with QUALITY and CLARITY in mind. Due to this mindset, our lessons can easily be facilitated by a substitute if you are out of the classroom but still want to continue to move forward with content.
However, the lesson plan is not the only thing you need to prepare for a substitute when you are out. A quality SUBSTITUTE BINDER is also imperative to the success of your lesson when you are out of the building.
Throughout my decade in the classroom, the contents of my substitute binder evolved but these NINE items, allowed my classroom to run like clockwork while I was gone:
PROCEDURES: This section outlines the procedures within my classroom. It explained how students sign out for the restroom, our policy on technology and cell phones, seating arrangements in my classroom and whether students were allowed to move/choose seats, how tardies are handled, where students should turn in work, and my procedure for student dismissal.
EMERGENCY INFORMATION: In this section of the sub binder, I included the procedures for fire drills, lockdowns, severe weather and tornado drills. I typically also included an attachment of the map that showed where students reported for all of the drills, as well.
DAILY SCHEDULE: Here I included the class period, the name of the class, the instructional time of the class period and the location students would be reporting (if it was not my normal classroom).
SEATING CHARTS: Not every class I taught had a seating chart. Typically, my freshmen and sophomore classes had seating charts, while my upperclassmen did not. I included seating charts for those classes that required them.
ABSENT/TARDY STUDENTS: I liked to know if students were absent or tardy, and did not like to look for that information in Progressbook, so I included a section for the substitute to document these in this binder.
HELPFUL INDIVIDUALS: When you are new to a building, it is nice to know who to contact if you have a question. I included helpful staff members to contact, which might be the principal, secretary, custodian or a neighboring teacher. I also included helpful students for each class so the substitute knew which students could be trusted if they had a question.
LESSON PLANS: I also included the actual lesson plans the sub would be completing that indicated the class/period, the materials/resources necessary for the lesson, the agenda or how much time each part of the lesson should take, the directions students should take to complete the lesson, as well as instructions for students who finish early.
The nice thing about the curriculum published by The Owl’s Nest is these instructor guides within the Introduction to AFNR curriculum are designed to be clear enough even a substitute with limited agricultural knowledge will be able to facilitate the lesson. This makes lesson planning for a substitute super easy and convenient and does not stop students from moving through the content if you are absent frequently.
SUBSTITUTE REPORT CARD: I liked to know how each of my classes behaved for the substitute so I provided a sub report card to be completed. This report card gave each class a letter grade and allowed room for comments. This minimized behavioral issues for me when I was absent and demonstrated accountability for students’ actions.
EMERGENCY SUB PLANS: Let’s be honest. Sometimes you don’t know you are going to be absent. In these situations, I had 3-day emergency sub plans always sitting in my binder. This allowed me the flexibility to have plans if I was not in control of when I was absent. I used the following resources from the National FFA Educator Resources for my emergency sub plans: FFA Fundamentals Choice Board, FFAorg Scavenger Hunt Choice Board, and SAE Video Choice Board. I would review these choice boards at the beginning of the year so students would know what is expected of them and be able to ask questions.
So don’t let having a substitute teacher in your classroom slow down the learning in your classroom. Download my Substitute Teacher Binder Template, purchase the Introduction to AFNR curriculum so your lesson plans are already completed for you, and start dominating your school year, whether you are in the classroom or not!
Reach out to info@owlsnestresources.com with any questions and thanks for joining The Owl’s Nest community!