Naomi Meredith  00:00

No matter what you teach, writing sub plans is a lot of work. Sometimes it’s easier to just teach then write the sub plans. Am I right? For those days that you do need to be out of the building, here are my tips, systems and lesson ideas for STEM sub plans, so you don’t have to stress about it anymore. 

Naomi Meredith  00:52

This episode was inspired by a question that I got on my Instagram DMs the other day, and it’s from @InspiredKia. She asked, “So curious when you have a sub, do you alter your lessons? Or do students still have full access to your supplies and materials?” This is a great question. As the short answer, it really depends. My sub plans change based on the rotation of kids that I have, where they are at in a project, what the project is, and also what the school schedule is like. I have an early release day once a week. Or maybe there’s an assembly schedule or even a fire drill. It really all depends. So I will be sharing with you all the different ideas that I have for sub plans that have worked well in my classroom that you can use in yours. 

Naomi Meredith  01:44

Before we even get into the actual plans, first, you need to create a sub plan template. This is going to save you a lot of time when you are getting your sub plans ready, whether you know ahead of time you’re going to be gone. Or if you need them last minute, I use my same template year after year with some modifications. Again, it makes it so much easier. If you have this system in place, I first create a simple Google doc template. I create a one column table where for each section are the different things that I’m going to add into that plan. The nice thing about making this a Google doc is that you can make a copy of it and create different templates for different days. This is helpful if you have different schedules for different days, which I’ve also had in the past. But also if you want to create a template for a half day morning, or a half day afternoon, that’s really helpful as well. 

Naomi Meredith  02:46

Here’s what I put in each section in the order that they go in before I even get to the actual plans. I’ve had a lot of subs over the years tell me they love the organization of my sub plans, and they have appreciated the information that I have included for them. So take this feedback that I have gotten and take a look at your own sub plans. Maybe you don’t even have any yet and see how you can tweak them and make them even better. At the top of my sub plans and that first section is a welcome message, letting them know I’m so grateful to have them here. If I personally know the sub, I might write them something sweet or funny just to give them a little laugh, so a nice little introduction. Also, depending on the setup, I might give them my phone number, but it also depends on where I am at for the day. If I’m at a training, I don’t mind giving my phone number or email. But if I’m on vacation, I will not include that information. After that I will have what to do for attendance. I personally don’t have to take attendance for my classes, but you might so add in that information and how to do that for a sub. 

Naomi Meredith  03:53

After that is my behavior protocols and a general sense of what I do for behaviors, positive and negative, and if there are any school wide incentives that the sub needs to give out. For example, my school has something called Tiger paws, and other teachers can compliment another class and award them a tiger paw, which in turn the classes are collecting Tiger paws to earn a class party. Our substitute or guest teachers can give classes a golden paw, which is worth five paws. Classes really have to work hard to get these golden paws and I let my sub know within these notes what a golden paw is and how classes can receive them. After that is just a basic list of phone numbers for emergencies and who to contact if they need help. I will also leave these important phone numbers by my telephone. So that is also helpful to have on hand for myself but of course for a sub. After that I also include my daily schedule and my duty schedule. Even if the sub doesn’t have to cover my duty for the day, I like to include all of them that I have throughout the school year. Then I’ll just highlight the duty if that pertains to that particular day. Like I said, I have two different time schedules for my week. I have my regular Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday schedule. But then on Wednesdays, the time changes a little bit. So I include all of that on my template. Again, I’ll just highlight the day that I am gone and the schedule that the sub needs to keep track of is a nice little hack. If you set this up beforehand, you don’t have to type it in again for the rest of the school year, and you have it ready to go and you’re not scrambling or forgetting about any of those different schedules or special duties that you have. 

Naomi Meredith  05:43

Next, I will write down what the seating looks like in my classroom, what students will do when they enter my room where they will sit, and what it looks like when they’re sitting at my tables. I have two different types of chairs in my classroom. One of my tables has these big black chairs that are ginormous for my first and kindergarteners and I don’t let them sit in them because they fall in them, they can’t get in the chair, and they don’t know how to push them in. So I include this in my notes that students can sit at the other tables with the blue or green stools. My older students sit at tables that correspond with their classroom number, and I have a sheet on their table that has the different numbers that are all mixed up. So just let the sub know about this. So if kids think they can sit wherever they want, that’s not always the case, I let them do that when they’re with me. But just so the sub is aware, I don’t write down their seating numbers, you can go ahead and do this. I just trust the kids to sit at third numbers. I don’t get too particular about it, but you know your kids best. So if you do, you need to include a seating chart, go for it. Finally, I do list out the activities in the order of when they will happen throughout the day, and what the sub will need to do with the kids. So that is just the sub plan templates. So this is the one that you would write on and modify as needed. Separate from that I actually have a simple sub binder. I had this when I was a classroom teacher as well. But this is the more detailed information about the school. 

Naomi Meredith  07:16

A handy trick with this is oftentimes at the beginning of the year, you might get a whole lot of paperwork from your front office with maps, what to do in an emergency, referral forms, school schedules, all of that information, I actually just put it in my sub binder. So it’s just in one location. I go to this binder if I need that information, but it’s just all helpful. It’s all in one place for myself. I also like to include in here different things that could be for fast finishers, a sub has never needed them. But just in case you never know. I will include things like hidden pictures searches, crossword puzzles, those types of easy activities. Then also a list of fun little brain breaks if the sub needs them, and a few random read alouds that no matter what you can do a read aloud. If all else fails, go for it. So I always have this in the binder, I just change it out every year or if there’s something that changes in our schedule. But otherwise, I don’t really go back into this binder very often, but I leave it out for my subs. Aside from that I have a another binder that has the student information. I have four different binders, one for each rotation that I teach. Again, I also use this binder as the teacher for my class list. It has all of my classes of my students. It has pictures of all the kids, and also all of the IEPs, 504s and all of that information for each grade level in each classroom. Again, this is something that I use all the time, I’m not creating something extra for my subs. But this is just a helpful system in a binder to have out for your substitutes, so they know what your students look like and then any very important information that they need to know about the students they have on hand. I also write down little notes. I will write down their nicknames or what they like to be called. If there’s any information like severe allergies, I’ll make sure that’s written down next to their name. If certain students have a para or need extra support, so that the sub is aware of this, and they’re not blindsided when all of the classes rotate to them throughout the day. 

Naomi Meredith  09:24

Now that you have set up your sub system, I’m going to share with you three different types of sub plans that you can use for your students and STEM. The first option is to continue lessons that students have been working on with me throughout the week. Again, this really depends on what the project is, where they’re at in their project, and what class is actually working on this project. Also, it does depend to what day I have a sub as well. Again, this will really really depend on all of these factors and I really tried to do this option continuing a lesson if possible. But the other two options are something I’m going to talk about as well. If this isn’t the case, more likely than not my older students, third, fourth and fifth grade are able to complete a lesson that they’re working on, which is awesome. If there’s something new that I do need students to really focus on before they get started, then I might even create a screencast video using Screencastify. I will film myself teaching that part of the mini lesson and have the substitute play that for my students, I don’t do this every time. But if I do, I will create a short link using Bitly bit.ly of that video that I created that’s in my Google Drive. Since I know I’m going to be gone, I will share with some of my older students that the teacher will have to first show them how to get this link. If anything were to happen, they could help the sub out, I would do this as a classroom teacher as well, both in the classroom and as a STEM teacher. The substitutes have really appreciated this because I also teach it in a way where I’m engaging with the class. So I’m not just talking at the kids. I will say raise your hand if or turn and talk to the partner about this. So I really tried to make it interactive, even though it’s recorded, and my substitutes have even told me they’ve really liked it when I’ve left these videos, and they could see how I am as a teacher, because sometimes I don’t always meet the substitutes. They really enjoyed this and it’s helped set the tone for the class, and the kids have a better idea of what they’re going to be working on throughout the lesson. 

Naomi Meredith  11:40

The second option that works excellent for sub plans is STEM and stories. I have talked about STEM and stories quite a bit and a lot in past episodes. So that is sprinkled in throughout many episodes. So keep an ear out for those because I’m sure gonna be talking about them again. I also have a couple bundles of seven story lessons that I have taught with my students that you could just grab and use for future sub plans as well. I don’t typically teach STEM in stories that often in my classroom because I like to save them as sub plans. Substitutes, I’ve found really like doing read alouds. This is a great way to capture the students attention. The students are going to listen to a story, they might plan their design and then build their design, probably using reusable objects like blocks or LEGO bricks. I won’t typically do Makerspace materials for these challenges, because I have a whole set of rules in place when it comes to Makerspace. So make sure you go back and listen to those past episodes as well because I explained my whole system and rules for that. But I have found that these STEM and stories lessons have been really successful for substitutes. They’re easy to prepare beforehand and a sub can do it for multiple classes throughout the day. Also, since you probably teach a lot of kids, you can have a bank of these prepared, and then just keep track of which classes have done which story. Then your sub plans might even be done for the rest of the school year. So I highly recommend saving these STEM and stories for these special moments. I have a bunch of them already made for you so your sub planning might even be done. A couple of my favorite favorite books that I love for STEM and stories is After the Fall by Dan Santat, Not a Box by Antoinette Portis, and Rosie Revere Engineer by Andrea Beatty. 

Naomi Meredith  13:40

Finally, the third option that you can do for your STEM sub plans, and this is a last resort, is to do a video. I also have this on hand for whatever reason I have had times where I woken up, I’ve lost my voice, I can’t teach and I wasn’t prepared for that. Sometimes just having a video, you just got to do it. I don’t recommend doing this all the time. But it’s just something again, good to have on hand. When I do a video I actually create an accountability sheet that students have to fill out when they’re watching and I will add it to the plans that I would like the sub to collect these sheets that students filled out. I will pick a few winners of kids who really tried and really showed their work while they were watching and give them a prize. This really helps us out because the kids might be even more engaged in the video and I don’t even say what the prizes are. I just think of it last minute so they don’t even know what they’re trying to earn but they just want to be the ones who win. So that has been really helpful. 

Naomi Meredith  14:44

My top three videos that I love using in the STEM space that are actually related to content is first Monsters Inc and it is rated G. When students watch Monsters Inc., they have to draw three inventions they see that the monsters use throughout the video. I also leave a space for them where they can draw an invention that they think would be helpful for the monsters to use. I have all three of these by the way that I’m going to talk about in my TPT shop for free. So of course, this will all be linked in the show notes as well. The second video that I like to use, this is more for fourth and fifth grade is Dream Big. The last time I checked, it was on Netflix, but it also might be on some other streaming platforms. I actually heard of this video, I got sent the physical DVD and I think a lot of STEM teachers that year did, but it’s actually really good. It shows kids how engineering and all types of engineering is being used in our real world. It’s super interesting and it’s all these short little videos along the way. I highly recommend watching it on a Friday night, it’s actually really good. There is one caveat, there’s one little part where these high school students have a robotics competition or they’re building something, and their design keeps sinking, like it keeps sinking or it keeps getting water in it. It’s one of those. So they ended up using tampons as a way to soak up the water. I don’t think they actually show tampons, they just talk about it. So not inappropriate, but I’m just letting you know if kids ask about it. That is in there, and it’s pretty funny. Not again, not inappropriate, but just something you might want to watch out for. I don’t have subs skip that part, I think it’s fine, but just be aware of your audience. 

Naomi Meredith  16:35

Then the third video I like to use in the STEM space is also rated G is Rio with those cute little singing birds. The songs are super catchy. I have students draw five or more different animals that they see in the rain forest habitat. Now pro tip, it’s really nice for the subs if you mix up the videos throughout the day. So if you have Rio for K and one, you have Monsters Inc, for two and three, and then Dream Big for four and five, then the sub doesn’t have to watch the same video six times and they will appreciate that. Then you can also just keep track of who watches what so then you’re not watching the same movie all day. Then you have to think of a new one for the next time. It’s just nice to mix it up. Also, the sounds a little bit backwards, I actually use the real old school DVDs for these videos. I don’t trust the WiFi when I’m gone. Of course, it’s not going to work when I’m not there. So I actually have a DVD player hooked up to my TV in case of an emergency. I know that the video is going to play. If you don’t have a DVD player, or you don’t want to go as old school as me, then I recommend pre-downloading the video and not having it go in a web browser. Because again, it might not work when you’re not there. So definitely not innovative. But maybe it is innovative because I’m solving a problem through old school technology. I don’t know it has worked well and has been totally okay for any teacher technology to I also take pictures of what the remotes look like, I create a visual chart of all the teacher technology so that they can find it and know exactly what buttons to click. So that is also a another great tip to have as well. That’s something that I will keep inside of my sub binder whenever I need it. 

Naomi Meredith  18:24

As a recap, here are my tips for lesson ideas and systems when it comes to writing your STEM sub plans. First create templates for writing your plans. Next, you can have the option of students continuing the projects they’re already working on. Second, you can also create Stemmons story lessons or have those prepared and ready to go. And third, as a last resort, you can do related STEM movies. Overall writing sub plans isn’t fun for anybody, it is my least favorite thing to do as a teacher. But hopefully with all of these ideas you can feel more prepared so you can even have things ready to go. So in the case that you have to be gone, it won’t be as stressful. You can grab and go and then be on your way for the day that you are not in the building.