Taking leave from your self-contained classroom can be stressful. There are so many moving pieces and so much to plan, and it can be easy to become overwhelmed with the task. I used to do a very poor job at preparing my classroom for subs, especially when I was out for several days. Over the years, I have learned what works and what does not work. I am glad to report that my classroom ran very smoothly while I was out of the country in Spain. I have five tips below I followed to ensure success in my classroom!
Change the Schedule
This might seem like an odd tip, especially because I do teach a class of students with Autism. Typically, schedule changes are hard. When I looked at my own schedule, though, I immediately realized I needed to reduce the length of my blocks. I am working on increasing duration at work centers, but my students are not consistently able to work for longer than 15 minutes at a time.
I decided to have my class change activities every 15 minutes. While this took a lot for me to plan, I was able to make a schedule that moved rapidly for them. My assistants reported the schedule moved so quickly that students did not have much of an opportunity to get antsy in any single activity. It helped decrease behavior issues and keep the class moving at a successful pace.
Change your Material Storage
I took items out of storage and placed them strategically around the classroom to make it easier for my assistants to grab. I also labeled every bin to match exactly what it said on the sub plans. My sub plans noted where the sub could find the materials for each part of the day. I also gave my assistant a tour, walking her through the sub plans and physically showing her where she could find each activity. This helped ensure that she knew what to do while I was gone.
Color Code Work
I was absent for five days during this past trip. For each day, I assigned a color. Wednesday was pink, Thursday was purple and so on. Any student work to be completed on a certain day had a dot in the top right corner that matched the color code. This helped my staff better understand what I wanted them to do each day. If materials were being used on multiple days, I included multiple dots. I did not want my assistant or sub to get confused. When it was time for reading on Wednesday, I wanted them to look in the reading bin and locate the book that had a pink dot on it. It helped them stay on track with completing activities.
Tell Everyone
I sent so many notices about my upcoming absence that I might have started to annoy people. I copied all of my school-based administrative team, as well as my administrators in the Autism department. I copied my inclusion teachers, the specialist teachers, and related service providers. I copied my assistants as well. I wanted everyone to be on the same page and be well aware that I was going to be out. I also informed my parents several times. They were all very understanding and waited for me to return from my trip before asking any day-to-day questions. Giving prior notice also let them know what was going on in case there were changes in their student’s behavior.
Overplan
If you are going to out for five days, plan for seven. This gives your team flexibility to change course if they need to. My assistant opted to skip an art project I had left because it was not fitting in with the classroom’s needs that day. By overplanning, she had a variety of activities to sub in and fill the time that would have been for art. It also allowed me to ease back into work without worrying about pulling activities together to get through my first days back.
Want to see the schedule my class followed and the activities I left? Grab the PDF here!