I was fortunate enough to travel the week before Thanksgiving, which meant that I took three personal days last week. I am still exhausted from the process of planning for it all! It took me longer to plan for the sub than it usually takes me to plan for a whole week. I spent long nights the week before I left writing detailed plans for each day and making sure everything was exactly the way it needed to be. I wanted to make sure I covered every contingency and that I had plenty of activities for each class. I feel as if this helped make the transition easier, both for my students and for the substitute, but I still feel like I'm trying to catch up from my time away.
How do you usually plan for a substitute? What do you think is necessary to include in your plans? How strictly do you want your sub to adhere to your plans? I found out my sub didn't follow the morning meeting quite the way I wrote it down, and that doesn't bother me so much, but when I found out he didn't require all of my students to do their morning work, that did bother me.
I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!
Hmmm. That's a toughy. Generally if I have a video scheduled during a unit I attempt to work it so that it's on the subs day. The more responsibility you give the sub, generally the more chaos ensues. I always feels as though if I leave specifc lesson plans that involve quite a bit of effort by the sub I end up reteaching it regardless. So, perhaps some of the more self directed activities would be better on those days.
ReplyDeleteI agree that more low-key activities are more likely to be successful with a substitute. However, with three days gone, I definitely needed to include some direct instruction into my plans as well. I did end up doing a bit of reteaching when I returned, but I think that it was good that the students were exposed to the new content and had time to work through some of it.
ReplyDeleteIf possibly, I try not to give the sub anything new to teach, I like to plan for a review or work day. If I know I'm going to be gone in advanced it is easier to plan for things, whereas those nights or mornings when your suddenly sick can be pretty stressful to figure out and get sub plans done.
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