Any teacher in every classroom from all schools knows one thing…Sub plans suck can be a challenge! Whether you need a sub for one week, one day, or even one hour, planning for a substitute teacher can take hours upon hours. For years we’ve wished we could just take a sub day and walk away!
After years of convincing ourselves we weren’t as sick as we felt and heading on in, or traipsing into class in the wee hours of the morning when it was still dark because being sick was in for the win, we got smart. We created a sub tub that would live in our classroom permanently and anyone at anytime could pick it up and teach our class. Creating our sub tub was the best thing we could’ve done. Hands down!
With enough activities to last them a week, a day or even an hour our Sub Tub activities give us the power…to take a sub day and walk away!
To be perfectly honest, we want our classroom to run as smoothly as possible in our time away because we all know if it doesn’t we will be the ones to pay! So putting together a sub tub with everything our substitute teachers need to run our classroom was a top priority. Our sub tub has hanging files inside of it with labels that list the times of day each activity takes place. Here’s a peek at what we keep inside our class sub tub.
In our Teacher Talk file, we have everything the substitute teacher could need for running our classroom while we’re away. From our class rules to daily student schedules (such as speech, intervention, etc) and tips and tricks from us. We typed this up and just update it and keep it permanently in our our Sub Tub Teacher Talk folder all year.
We always keep a stash of sticky student name tags printed on address labels in our Sub Tub. We use these for everything in our classroom, so printing a few extra sets for subs was no problem. Some subs appreciate the name tags while others are great with learning names on the fly. Either way the name tags are there if they need them to get by.
Sticker Boards for the Classroom is our go to classroom management with substitute teachers. Each of our students keeps a sticker board in their desks all year long. They earn stickers for all sorts of positive behaviors and sub days are no exception. We encourage our subs to throw stickers around like candy. Whatever works!
Of course if you don’t use Sticker Boards (Even though you totally should!), leaving a stash of stickers in your Sub Tub works great too!
Super Sub Day Slips are all the rage on Sub Days! We want our students to be on their best behavior, so printing out these slips and sticking them in our sub plans are a great incentive for all. If any of our students earn a Super Sub Day Slip, we follow up with them on our return and thank them for being respectful and responsible. We find the follow up goes a long way to continued smart choices and positive behavior in our classroom. Plus, it takes like 5 seconds to say, “Hey, thanks!”, but the impact can last a lifetime.
You can grab these Super Sub Slips for free.
Every school day starts the same with our daily seat work activity. Our seat work activity on sub days is always Listen Up. These activities set the stage for success and promote consistent class expectations out the gates. We expect our students to listen to the substitute teacher and we want our substitute teacher to see they are capable of listening to them.
The rest of our day is broken into time periods that coordinate with our class schedule. For those times, we love leaving one of our Booktivities.
Literally, we leave a book and activities for the taking and walk away. It’s so easy!
Our favorite class sub tub activities to leave are our Miss Nelson is Missing Sub Tub Booktivities. It’s the perfect book for those days away and the kids love working through our language arts and math activities that coordinate with the story!
We’ve just completely revamped our Miss Nelson is Missing Sub Tub Booktities. Now with over 120 pages, including color and black and white print options, lesson plan cards for easy implementation and tons of activities to keep your class busy during your days away!
No lesson plans to write, just leave copies of the activities and the lesson plan cards for easy implementation. The sub can read and do…It’s that simple! These are also great for parent volunteers during centers too.
Each of the activities included in our Miss Nelson Sub Tub Booktivities are now available in color or easy print and go black and white options.
Activities are differentiated with options to extend as time allows.
Students can work whole group with the teacher guiding discussion (From the class pocket chart works great!), the class can work in table teams to complete activities, or students can work on their own at their seats or on the floor.
With tons of activities to choose from for multi-level learners, there are plenty of choices for our substitute teacher and we leave confident knowing our students will love learning while we are away.
We recently added several math activities to balance out our Miss Nelson is Missing Sub Tub Activities. Class Tally Time is our favorite because it allows our students to get up and collaborate! But if your sub prefers, there are also number grid and number story activities to choose from.
If there are sequels to our Book of the Day, we love leaving them in our Sub Tub as time allows. The kids get a kick out of continuing the story.
Miss Nelson is Missing Sub Tub Booktivities-Sentence Scramble Activities
-“Studying the Story” Retelling Activities
-Syllable Sorting Activities
-Word Detectives Activities (Nouns, verbs, adjectives)
-Word Building Activities
-Written Response Printables
-Class Tally Time Math Activity
-Who’s Missing Hundreds Grid Activities
-Miss Nelson Math
-Miss Nelson Number Stories
If you already own our Miss Nelson is Missing Sub Tub Booktivities, be sure to update your download on TpT.
