Ideas to make subbing easier

As I have returned to the world of teaching in public schools, I have found the need to re-acquaint myself in methods of classroom management... particularly to students I have never met before. To succeed in this task, I have found myself perusing dozens of substitute blogs to pick brains of other substitutes for tricks of the trade.

Some of the ideas that I'd like to try out (mostly just for elementary school) include:

1. Reading: Story time is always a big hit.


2. Selecting a nick-name for myself, such as Mrs. Science or Mrs. General or Mrs. Homework, etc.


3. A time filler for working with math called "High-Low" from Journey of a Substitute: On the board, make a T-chart with a column for "low" and another for "high". Pick a random number from 0-100, and gradually have them narrow it down. For example, if the number is 13 (my lucky number!), and they guess 28, then put 28 in the "high" column, but if they guess 10, it goes in the "low" column until they eventually guess the number.


4. Writing: "Round the Room Writing". Have students write each letter of the alphabet down their page, and find something in the room starting with each letter (example: a=answers, b=books, c=clock, etc)


5. Try stickers or smarties from The Fine Art of Subbing


6.  A bag of tricks and essentials to make the day go better


7. If a kid is giving you a hard time, be sure to learn their name and use it... a lot!

Hmmmm... I can't seem to remember all of the great ideas since working through the process of setting up a blog. I'll add more to this list as time goes on.

That's all for now.

Not the day to start a substitute teaching blog

Hello web world. As the SOPA/PIPA protest day, this isn't the best day to decide to start a blog. I've run into multiple blocks, so I'll just blog about my subbing experiences here. I've re-entered the teaching world as an on-call substitute teacher, and it has been fun for the couple of weeks I've tried it. Today I subbed for a science teacher, and it was my first time teaching with no sub plans. It was to be a "movie day", which I would have thought would be much easier than a typical sub job. Not so. I'm beginning to find that throwing in a movie seems to be a bigger hassle than just teaching a lesson. However, I remember those days when it was much easier for me to come in and teach than to write sub plans. The day was much easier when I pulled out other science things and told science stories. The students were more attentive and respectful of one another. All I want to finish with is that I'm glad that I didn't have to pull up any Wikipedia articles for lesson plans today.