An important part of preparing for a new school year is putting together some emergency lesson plans. When you’re in the thick of the school year, you’ll be able to ensure that your students will have uninterrupted learning even if something unexpected comes up.
Why Everyone Needs Emergency Lesson Plans
There are several reasons why it’s helpful to have some emergency lesson plans on hand in your classroom. Here are three of the most common reasons why teachers are grateful to have some ready-to-use lesson plans:
Unplanned Absence
This is what most people think of when they hear emergency lesson plans. Creating a sub tub or binder with ready-to-use activities and plans will ensure that you don’t have to drag yourself to school late at night or early in the morning when you’re sick or dealing with a family emergency. Your sub plans will be ready to go!
Unforeseen Loss of Prep Time
We’ve all had those situations where we lose our prep time unexpectedly, and staying late or coming in early isn’t really an option. Emergency lesson plans can come to the rescue in this situation, as well!
Unexpected Change of Plans
Have you ever had your entire day planned out to introduce and practice an important concept, but then half of your class is absent? Or maybe you had a special guest speaker or field trip planned that got cancelled at the last minute? Emergency lesson plans can help fill in the gaps during these unexpected schedule changes.
Tips for Creating Emergency Lesson Plans
1. Use Fun Themes
Themed activities are such a great format for emergency lesson plans. Instead of a full day of unrelated activities, you can rest easy knowing that your students will be completing cohesive, meaningful lessons during a themed day of learning.
2. Plan for Multiple Days
Another important tip for creating emergency lesson plans is to have multiple days planned out. If your emergency sub plans only cover one day, you’ll find yourself scrambling to communicate the plans for day two or three while you’re still out of school.
This is when the themes are really helpful! The themed learning can span a few days, giving students a chance to enjoy a short thematic unit rather than multiple days of activities that have been pieced together in a rush.
3. Incorporate Familiar Routines
Even though emergency plans are hitting the pause button on your main curriculum, you should still incorporate familiar routines in your plans. For example, if you have a morning meeting in your classroom, be sure to add activities for this routine into your emergency sub plans. You’ll also want to make sure that you include activities for each part of your typical daily schedule, including reading, math, and writing.
It’s also a good idea to include details about your classroom procedures, schedules, and other classroom management information.
4. Add Flexible Activities
Your substitute teacher will likely end up with pockets of extra time during the day. Students might finish early or a whole-group activity might have taken a bit longer than planned. Be sure to include some flexible activities like easy-to-prep crafts, directed drawings, or poems.
These are perfect for filling in any of those awkward gaps in the schedule that can occasionally pop up for subs.
5. Provide Print and Digital Options
If you use an interactive whiteboard in your classroom, be sure to include both digital and print options of the activities in your emergency sub plans. Your sub can guide your students through the day using digital slides, but can also use printable activities if they aren’t comfortable using the interactive whiteboard.
6. Make Them Easy to Find
Once you have the emergency lesson plans all prepped and ready to go, it’s important to make them easy to find! Whether you store the materials in a sub tub, binder, or file folder, make sure that they don’t get pushed to the back of a closet or file cabinet. Since emergency lesson plans aren’t something you need to access very often, it’s easy for them to get buried over time.
7. Adjust for Student Growth
One of the main challenges of emergency sub plans in an early elementary classroom is that the students grow by leaps and bounds over the course of the school year. The emergency lesson plans you create and tuck away for September won’t be very helpful in May!
However, it’s not always feasible to update your emergency lesson plans during the hustle and bustle of the school year. That’s why I created a full-year solution for busy teachers like you!
Printable Emergency Sub Plans for the Whole Year
Would you like to breathe easier knowing that you have an entire year of emergency sub plans ready to go? These editable, easy-to-follow lesson plans are based on fun monthly themes. The skills practiced in each lesson follow the typical skill progression of the school year.
Each monthly theme has three lessons which work well for either single-day or multi-day absences. The activities follow the same structure and include the same types of activities all year. Your students will learn the format of the daily plan quickly and will easily follow along any time there’s an unexpected sub. There are also digital versions of the activities, which makes it easy for the sub to use the interactive whiteboard.
This resource also includes editable notes and information sheets to leave for the sub. Just a little bit of prep work is all you need to have an entire year of emergency sub plans organized and ready to go!
If you’d like to take a closer look at everything included with these editable emergency lesson plans, you can find this year-long bundle in my TPT store.
Save These Tips for Emergency Lesson Plans
Be sure to save this post so you can come back to it later! Just add the pin below to your favorite teaching board on Pinterest. You’ll be able to quickly find these tips and resources when you’re putting together your own emergency lesson plans.
