Unfortunately, we all have those days when we just have to call in a sub. Now, all of us teachers know that being “out” is often more work than just coming in to teach. This is why having “Emergency Sub Plans” pre-made and ready to go is vital. This way, you can show your neighboring teacher where it’s located at the beginning of the year and not stress any more about it! 

Some teachers create elaborate “Emergency Sub Binders”, some create cute, decorated “Emergency Sub Tubs”, and some teachers just put all the things into a manilla folder and call it a day. It doesn’t matter which of those teachers is your teacher-twin or if you fall somewhere in between. There are certain “must-haves” that will make your Emergency Sub days run smoothly. Use the free worksheet below to help plan for Emergency Sub days!

How many days should I plan?

You might be wondering, “How many days should I plan?”. This is a great question because you cannot predict how long you will be absent. I recommend having one set of plans for five consecutive days, one set of plans for 2 consecutive days, plus having 3 to 5 single day plans (nonconsecutive). Don’t panic. Don’t feel like you need to do this all at once! Go ahead and have the 2 consecutive days planned before school starts, so you at least have something. Then, over Winter Break or any other break, put together the others. Obviously, you don’t have to create these during your breaks, but my point is that you can stagger them out some.

Planning your Sub Directions

I had the opportunity to be a substitute before I started teaching, so I can speak from experience on this one! I recommend providing the sub with 2 versions of directions: an outline and full-detail. These are great to include in your emergency lesson plans. This is especially helpful if the sub is covering multiple days. Things can quickly become chaotic, so having something a sub can use at-a-glance is helpful. The full-detail version is helpful for those moments when students ask detailed questions. 

Helpful Tips

Avoid plans that require background knowledge unless you are providing the background knowledge. In a typical middle grades classroom, the sub might experience the students claiming they don’t know anything about this, so they simply cannot do the work. You know what I’m talking about! I can hear the “we haven’t learned this” whines all the way from here! It’s a good idea to provide a reading passage (or something similar) with the work to eliminate this excuse. 

For middle school Social Studies, use plans that extend from your standards and that you can use at any point during the pacing. Typically, we cannot predict when in the pacing guide we’ll need these Emergency Sub plans. This can make it difficult to decide what to put into our plans. I recommend choosing a topic that extends from at least one of your standards. For example, if at some point in the year you teach about World War II, use an article with activities about a famous WWII spy for your sub plans. If you teach about the Civil Rights Movement at some point in the year, use an article with activities about a civil rights leader that isn’t covered in your curriculum. If you teach about trade barriers at some point in your year, use an article with activities about a specific trade barrier placed and the events surrounding it. 

Prepare for “Fast-Finishers”. Make sure you have some work for students to finish early. From experience, my middle school students finish work either really fast with a sub because they aren’t trying or they don’t finish at all because they aren’t trying. So, be prepared for both. It is ALWAYS best practice to consider halving the time you expect it to take, and provide extra work to accommodate the “new” time. For example, if your students typically complete a reading passage and 10-question worksheet in 45 minutes, plan for them finishing it in 20 minutes. If your sub is inexperienced (or even ineffective), it will likely be difficult to come up with something on their own for students to do when they’re finished. I do not recommend “silent reading” as a “fast-finisher” activity for middle school students. From a teacher’s and a substitute’s perspective, independent reading fuels all kinds of issues. One issue is that students will want to use this opportunity for a library trip, a bathroom trip, or any-other-place-I-can-think-of trip. There is no accountability for this activity, so classroom management might become difficult during independent reading. Try to use activities that can be turned in, such as color-by-number, word search, crossword, sudoku, etc. 

Provide answer keys for your subs. This is not required but is definitely a bonus! Students will inevitably ask the sub questions about the content, so the sub will be more comfortable if there is an answer key to reference. Plus, the sub might even grade some of the papers for you! Please do NOT ask your sub to grade papers, unless you know for 100% that they will have a planning. Sometimes subs are pulled to work in different areas of the school during your planning period, so don’t assume they will have an abundance amount of extra time to grade papers for you. 

Reading Activity Packets for Sub Days

Reading activity packets are PERFECT for sub plans! I have three whole years of Social Studies Reading Activity Packets at your disposal! If you’re already using the reading packets for your grade level during your curriculum, you can choose a reading packet for a different grade level for your sub plans to avoid repeating it. For example, if you are currently using the 6th grade Social Studies Reading Packets in your curriculum, you could choose to use packets from the World War II unit in 5th Grade Social Studies or from an economics unit in 7th grade Social Studies. Use the shopping guide below to help you choose!