If The Beatles were substitute teachers
- Child: The regular teacher lets us sit wherever we want
- John: Yeah okay you lying bastard, sit in your assigned seat.
- Paul: Okay dear, just don't misbehave or we might have to write you a detention, but probably not. Okay just sit down.
- George: Well, that's alright, just give me some of your food.
- Ringo: *dances over to where the kids want to sit and joins them*
You are also a sub. What are some good tips to survive the day?
Hey Pencilblots!
My top sub survival tips are:
- Bring a back up lesson plan with you.
- Bring time cruncher activities. Or activities for students to do when they are done with work (draw a Boggle board on the white board or bring YA novels or create some sort of contest).
- When taking attendance walk around with a piece of paper. Ask for students to write their name down. Use your walking around as a test to see who quiets down when you approach them. The person who doesn’t is usually the student that can be distracting to others-send that person with the attendance list down to the main office. Usually the walk helps them settle down when they come back, and it gets the class back on track.
- Bring supplies- paper, pencils, pens, chalk, white board markers. Don’t waste your time looking through a messy teacher’s desk. It’ll just stress you out!
- Find out how to take attendance, the procedure for giving students passes to the bathroom, and where to send them when they’re misbehaving from a kind and trusted colleague.
- Have your own behavior management plan. Ask yourself ahead of time how would you react if a student did X? I found it helped to have pretyped letter to students who were misbehaving that asked them to answer questions like why they received this letter and what they could do to improve their behavior. This letter acted as a step before the referral.
- Another behavior strategy is bringing in raffle tickets and awarding students who behave well with tickets and then having a raffle at the end of class with prizes.
- Show up early, make sure your car has gas the night before, and that your clothes are ready the night before.
- Smile even after a crazy class :)
- Show students that you’re happy to be there.
- Always introduce yourself, tell them a little snippet about yourself and talk about your behavior standards.
- Enjoy it. It can be stressful, and it can be rewarding, but just enjoy it the best you can. Don’t beat yourself up about the bad days just reflect, and celebrate the great days :)
GOOD LUCK :) <3
