BEST SUBSTITUE TEACHER TIPS!

subbing is hard that's it it's hard hi guys welcome back to my channel it is a lovely Sunday morning here in California and I am just sitting down with you today to talk about substitute teaching because I know when I was going through it there wasn't a ton of resources out there and it was really scary so I just wanted to jump on here and give you some tips that I think will really really help you out if you are subbing these are things that I wish I would have known before I jumped into the classrooms so if you are a substitute teacher or you're thinking about it and you want some tips please keep on watching subbing is terrifying it's very very scary how do I notice well um if you watch my teaching story prior to even starting the teaching program and then well after the teaching program I had quite a bit of subbing experience that's how I got my classroom experience so when I first started setting I literally had no background in education as far as my undergrad goes no classroom experience so the first day that I walked into that seventh-grade English why I don't know I was terrified and then after I got my teaching credential I had a weird six month gap before I got a job so I was something then that was a little less scary because I had had a lot of classroom experience from my student teaching I think I have a kind of unique point of view on substitute teaching because I come from both sides of the spectrum I have substituted taught with no experience I've substitute up with experience and now I'm a classroom teacher and I rely on the subs so I think I have a really good perspective so hopefully you'll find some of these tips pretty informative so let's just get started let's just jump right into it so they aren't really in any particular order I just kind of made a list on my phone but this first one as soon as I figured this out and I learned it through my CTO student teaching it changed my subbing experience no matter what classroom I went in and this is like the holy grail of behavior management as a sub I swear so basically all I would do at the beginning of the day I would say look I don't really know you that well you don't really know me that well as much as I would love to sit here and get to know you and for you to trust me I know that that might not necessarily be the case so instead of yelling and screaming at you all day I don't have the voice for it all I'm gonna do is I need to get your attention I will give one warning I'll say please be quiet and then after that I will just stick my phone up in the air and a timer will start as soon as you see my phone go up in the air the time starts rolling however much time you take from me and your friends around you is how much time you're gonna owe me before you go to a recess or if it's middle or high school before you go to lunch case in point and I swear to God ever since I started doing that when I was studying it was like and like everyone would just listen and before that it's so hard if you don't have any teaching experience because you try all these things and it's like you have no rapport with the kids they don't know who you are they don't really care it's like teachers dawn for the day so I swear that was probably the best tip that I had ever gotten when I was subbing so try it out if yours up another thing that I used to do I was kind of like a behavior management I don't really call it like technique but what I would say every morning was just so you know I talked with your teacher this morning so I know what's going on and I will talk to him or her at the end of the day and whether or not that was true for whatever reason that just kind of gave the kids a sense of like oh she knows what she's doing even though I had no idea what I was doing you got it's kind of like a fake it till you make it Mario and for whatever reason when I would tell him that I talked to their teacher and I'm gonna talk to them later they were a little like less inclined to kind of I don't know goof around and like throw pencils and stuff so um definitely try that out it was something that I found out that worked well for me so there we go tip number two the third tip I have for you is something that I always used to do as a sub and now that I'm a classroom teacher I really really appreciate when subs do this and that is leave a note at the end of the day tell them what got accomplished what didn't get accomplished what kids were like really really helpful and then what kids you need to have a talking to when you get back as a teacher I really appreciate when subs do that it lets me know a little bit of what going what went on during the day when I was gone and a lot of times if they just write thanks a lot I'm like I have to rely on the kids to be honest with me and tell me what they didn't didn't get done so um leave a note and then another thing too is leave your number if you're constantly wanting to get jobs and you really really like this school or you like the kids and and you just want to come back leave your number because as a teacher I don't know if it's the case for all districts but like we're always in a sub-sub shortage so if I stuff leaves me their number like you better believe I'm texting you before I put that job up online because I know you know my kids and I just I already trust her a little bit more than a stranger so if you're a 7 you're wanting to get jobs always leave your number with a note for the classroom teacher all right this fourth tip might be the most important I did not know this when I started subbing and i shortly found out that this was imperative now if you've ever sobbed are you thinking about subbing 99% of the time you'll walk into a classroom with some plans like the teacher will have made some plans there is a chance that you show up to a school and a teacher just got sick and they have to throw things around and you walk into a classroom and there's no sub plans that happened to me once and I was mortified like absolutely mortified luckily it was a middle school so every hour I got a new round of kids and I could just think of like one activity to do the whole day but the thought of coming into like an elementary school and having these same kids for six hours and having nothing planned and no classroom experience is like my worst nightmare so if you are a sub or you're thinking about subbing have an emergency folder of activities to do okay nobody told me that and I soon found that out and then I eventually created a little folder so nobody really told me what to put in the folder so I'm going to give you some ideas that you could put in your emergency kind of like planned folder if you're a substitute okay so what activity it's super easy is just silent reading right and a lot of times teachers plan for this during when they have a sub because it's just easy it's something to keep the on task for a certain block of time so silent reading you don't need to bring anything for that you don't need to make copies nine out of ten times the kids have a book and if they don't there's a library so silent reading that's I could go to or was it go to when I was studying if I had like a 5-10 minute block of like free free space you'll find that that happens too you'll get through the sub plans and you'll be like oh god I have 15 minutes of like dead air like what do I do so these are also things you can use during those times as well so silent reading would be a first one that I recommend on that kind of same note and another thing you can do is just like a read aloud whenever I would sub for kindergarten or first second grade I would just say okay everyone come sit in the on the carpet I'm gonna see somebody that's being really quiet you can walk over to the library choose a book and we'll read it together and that was a really good way to just kill about 10-15 minutes of dead space too and the kids really loved it and it's still educational so it's not like a total waste of time so read aloud as well you can do that even the older grades I think I read wonder to a fifth grade class just like let's just read it so I don't know read aloud another really good idea another super easy one that you don't necessarily have to prep a lot for our writing proms now this is kind of only gonna benefit you maybe like second grade and above because the K the Kinder's in the in the first C's might not be able to do this but I would just have like a list of writing prompts and I'll give the kids piece of binder paper and be like if you could have any superpower um what would you have I want you to write for 20 minutes and then you have them come up and you have them share so it just takes a little bit more time so this is a really nice activity to just like I said fill some of that extra space up this next one saved me especially for the little ones and I still do this in my third grade classroom and that's like brain break games hopefully if you're subbing you have access to the computer because gonoodle and like just dance on YouTube kids love that and it's a really really good thing to do while you're subbing and they sit for a really long time they're starting to get like squirrely and crazy and you don't really know what to do put on a just dance from YouTube or a gonoodle they have like little exercises that the kids can do I just gets them up it gets them moving it gets their brains like refocus so I used to do it all the time when I was subbing and like I said I still do that in my class now um are there little things to just like okay everybody stand up everybody stretch touch your toes like play Simon Says like little things like that just to break up the activities to make it last a little bit longer and the kids will stay focused a little bit longer so like I said I use those now and I use them eyes up another thing that I always had in my sub folder was a blank bingo sheet this is because you can use it for any grade any subject and it takes a lot of time and the kids love it so for example if you don't have sub plans and you're in a third grade classroom and you have a bingo sheet and I would always make like 20 copies of it or probably like 30 just I had a full class set because a lot of times you're not gonna have time to go make copies in the middle of the day it will just be a blank bingo sheet and for example if it was third grade and I said okay write in like a bunch of different products and I'd give them like three times three and if they had nine they'd mark it off or their spelling words or just any third grade spelling words right like you could just pull them I don't know out of thin air or with the little kids like um two plus two equals you know or I don't know just any anything content related you can turn into bingo and the kids really really love it they're gonna be more engaged and it's just it's just something that has a sub I I didn't say it did a lot but I definitely had to pull for it when I had some space of just like what do I do with these 26 year olds just staring at me well it just gives me chills thinking about it it can be so scary so the last kind of like little activity idea I'll share with you is 910 times a lot of classrooms will have individual whiteboards and if I had some extra time I would say okay like let's say five minutes for example you guys can't draw on your whiteboards or you practice math facts on your whiteboards or spelling on your whiteboards or you can turn with a partner in practice your spelling and just just having that in your back pocket those ideas is really really really gonna make a difference if you ever get stuck in those situations where you're like I've never taught before what the heck do I do so hopefully that helps you guys out a little bit okay so another just general tip for subs this is something that probably will only apply if you eventually are going to want to be a full-time classroom teacher and that is if you are eventually going to be a teacher and you're subbing get to know the administration and get to know the staff I know that can be really scary when I first I've heard something like I did not eat lunch in the staff room I was like terrified of all the other teachers and so if you're thinking about getting hired somewhere one day make those connections because it will make the world of difference my face had been out there since I was subbing a lot and I didn't actually send out my particular school but when I would start going to trainings and stuff teachers that I had some floored be like oh my god hi so just making those connections especially if you're gonna try and get a job is huge so definitely make that connection and definitely definitely talk to the principal because if any behavior problems are going on you want to know who they are and you want them to know who you are right and so it's just just something to take into consideration definitely reach out to the other staff members and they're super helpful just just do it this tip is coming from a classroom teacher to substitutes please listen to this one if you are sub leave the room in a state that the teacher will appreciate the next day I did this as a sub just I don't know I think it's kind of common sense but you would be really surprised but it's the worst when you walk into a cop into your classroom the day after a sub and it's just like there's stuff all over the floor there's no like driver reason to the paper pile on your desk and it's just like oh my god I did not plan to clean that for 30 minutes and organize before my day started it throws us off so please please please if you're a substitute make sure you take the time at the end of the day to have the kids clean up the floors make sure everything is nice and tidy and then just put the activities and things that you did kind of like in order on their desk just make it look nice it's it's seriously it only takes you five minutes and it means the world to the classroom teacher so that is a really big tip that I'm gonna give you guys especially if you want to come back to that classroom I had one substitute that left his number and also left the class a freaky mess and so it was like sorry so please put the classroom back in order so the last tip I have for you guys is just like breathe it's scary it's it's overwhelming and it's just not easy it's really not easy so it's okay if you fail it's okay if you don't get through all the material at the end of the day your job is to just be there in place of the classroom teacher to get through the day and to make sure everybody's safe and and that's it so if you don't get through all the material that's fine if a lesson just totally blows up with the kids didn't learn anything that's fine the classroom teacher will come in and pick up the pieces now if that's being if that's the case just make sure you write a little note will forgive you like we've all been there so just breathe we appreciate you so just know that if you're I'm thinking about being a sub and if you are a sub thank you so much for what you do we really appreciate you alright guys so was that kind of wraps up the tips that I have for substitute teachers I hope you learned something I hope you enjoyed this if you haven't subscribed yet please take a minute to hit that subscribe button I really really appreciate it it's kind of exciting that I have more people coming back to watch my videos it makes it all the more worth it and it's just really really fun for me so if you have any questions or comments go ahead and leave them down below and I will see you guys next time

Channel: Early EDventures

Views: 100,964

Rating: 4.9475408 out of 5

Keywords: iMovie, substitute teaching, substitute teacher, how to substitute teach, tips for subsitute teachers, first year teacher, elementary teacher, how to sub, first day of subbing, pocketful of primary, the kinderhearted classroom, the lettered classroom, a classroom diva, toocoolformiddleschool

Id: ucFN0s5u6vg

Length: 15min 1sec (901 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 28 2018