Inside My Substitute Binder | The Lettered Classroom

so this week I have a lot of sub days that I am requesting off for various reasons we have a full day of conferences I have um you know lay curriculum rewrite that I'm doing I also have some doctor's appointments and I'm getting closer to a fall break and the kids have been working really hard on a couple of different projects that is making my room feel a little bit chaotic so join me in this vlog guys as I get my room put back together get everything organized and I also get ready for making sure that when I have a sub they have everything they need but also for those days when like last Friday I get a migraine and I am NOT able to plan anything so what do we do for those days all right join me and let's do this let's go to do with my class so I first want to show you guys these Rube Goldberg projects so the kids had to create a complex and y'all I put these pillows down because this like creates so much noise in my classroom and I pick it up in these videos so ignore those but they're creating these really complex machines that are to solve a simple task so I have already had two groups finished theirs they've uploaded their videos into our learner management system and I am ready for these other ones to get done not only have we been working on this Rube Goldberg project for the energy transfer so the kids have to be able to identify the different energy that's transferred as it goes from one object to another object to another but we've also been working on a science fair because the kids my fourth graders have swimming so they're gone in the mornings and in in order to like combat this whole oh we don't really have anything to do because our schedule is a little wonky our fifth and sixth graders are participating in a science fair so it's our own little like Mack team science fair and they're really excited about it but they're also doing it with partners so they're working on that and we have to get those done this week as well so I feel like I have all these different projects that are happening in my room so let me show you like one of the other ones that the kids have and it's just like sitting there was like a huge mess in my classroom earlier I have no idea what this mixture is but this is one of the other projects that my partner teacher was kind of supervising and making sure that everything was working out well and then I have this complex machine over here where the kids are working - let's see they have they they drop something down here there's some other little devices that go here and it ends up dropping down there on that little Christmas light to turn off my lights right above so that was kind of their simple task that they wanted to be able to solve but it's just things like that that I feel like are driving me a little bit crazy yeah just a little let me sit you down and I want to talk to you a little bit about my set binder it's been a really long time since I've updated my sub binder in fact when I was going through this binder originally I have it totally emptied out right now what I was going through this binder originally it had things from like back four years ago hopeless I can't believe I've gone that long without updating a binder because it's so important to have this and let me tell you a little bit why so I feel like right now we've had some shortages with finding substitutes so I feel as though they try to pull different teachers or they end up putting other specialist teachers to be able to cover classrooms especially when we have things like CPM training or ela curriculum rewrite things that we have to be out for we don't really have a choice for it and so they put these teachers in the classroom and and when we don't provide teachers with enough information on how to run our classrooms appropriately it just causes frustrations frustrations for them it causes frustrations for the kids and I almost feel like we also need to make sure that we're doing a justice to those guest teachers that are coming into the classroom that we're making them feel as prepared as possible because bless it I don't think I would want to be a substitute in a classroom that's not prepared or that's not giving me enough information for me to go off of because everybody has their own ways of working things which is fine I feel like you just need to be make sure that you are crossing your T's dotting your eyes and making sure that you're giving all that information to that guest teacher in a very easy format to read so I am I was talking with one of the newer teachers in our building and I was just mentioning what are some of the things that I would typically try to put inside of a sub binder and I thought this was a perfect time for me to try and update it because I've been out quite a bit and it's perfect time for me to update it because I was having this conversation with this new teacher but then again I just I also want to make sure that for when I have people come into my classroom that I don't think I'm you know as prepared for like last Friday y'all I had the worst migraine ever couldn't come to school I would just want to make sure that I'm fully prepared and I don't want to leave my partner teachers hang in by me not having everything so here's what I have I've always kept a sub binder I've always had one ever since kindergarten and so um I recently just made this cover yesterday today one of these days I printed it out today I don't know remember when I made it but I ended up making one of these and I'm having it in a spot inside of my classroom which is very very noticeable and that's a really really important piece because they need to be able to say oh here it is they shouldn't have to go digging through your stuff to be able to find a sub binder now it's like on those days where I can't get out like I can't even talk I can't even get out of bed because I'm so sick they need to be able to find it so let me show you where in my classroom I have placed it okay so this is my desk area right here this is where I have some of my materials it's where I do my small groups and you're gonna notice that right up here I have a little bulletin board which has been very nice having actually I keep different checklists for myself or different information pages that are here these are my jobs that are located up here and then just to of either Webb's depth of knowledge or some different instructional strategies that are on a ring that I constantly use and then I have my math books that keep all of my answers there are inside of this little pocket and this y'all I literally just just push pinned it now I will be honest they don't stay on perfectly all the time like I have to be super gentle when I place things inside of it but it holds it for the most part well right above that you're gonna see it's like right in my face it's a substitute binder read this first I wanted it to be something that a sub could very easily find so rights win me back up so right when they walk up they can automatically see oh there is a substitute binder that I need to look at in case I'm not able to put it out for them so we felt like I was really trying to make sure that I had all of the different things that I needed inside of that binder and I'm sure that as I go along it's probably gonna grow it's probably gonna change and that's completely okay I know this is probably a little bit of a weird angle but that is going to be fine I think we're gonna make it so like I said I had my cover here when I had to put my room number I have some materials on this side with a sheet for taking attendance so it's probably best you can't really see those and then I have a table of contents and it just really kind of gives the sub a general idea of what's going to be included inside of this binder I have my schedule inside and I did go to Target it ended up buying a set of dividers which worked out really well I just got to make the actual little labels for them so then I have my checklist and I don't want to show you a ton of those but I have a homeroom checklist I have one for literacy studio which is you know my reading block and then I have one for math as well so all of those are in there with the kids a name so that the teacher can make sure that those students are in attendance of that class so once we go into that then I go into my procedures now these are common procedures that I have during the day I ended up deciding to get rid of the first one which was like a morning one that I had in here now I have a during the day procedures I talked about the lights what happens if a kid brings in birthday treats what do I do with music because I have an echo inside of my classroom the kids really like it what do I do with pencils which I'm very weird about oh I made a sticky note about doing one for callin responses as well but I have bathroom nurse what happens when they don't have an iPad and what happens when they're talking not following directions into the day procedures are more things like classroom jobs and making sure lights are all turned off and behavior cards so all of those pieces are in there and I've talked about them in detail then I go into emergency contacts now my emergency contacts are people like the secretary the nurse the principal all of those people that I feel like they would need to get in contact during the day I've placed their phone numbers there we have fire drill procedures which I use bullets guys because I want it to be simple I don't want them to have to read a paragraph to figure out what in the world they're supposed to be doing so I can easily look here and say everybody line up grab this wait until this go on until this I wanted to make it very very simple to follow so I have all of those in there and then I go in and this is where we put 504s and IEP s then I go into you behavior management plan so this is where I talk a little bit about how we handle behavior management on our team how do I handle consequences which are logical consequences how do we do anything with dojo and so what I did is I kind of gave them a gist of it but then here I use these positive and negative dojo sheets for the teacher to be able to fill out so as they're going on throughout the day they can mark any one for positive dojos they can mark any one for negative dojos and i will put those in for the next day because we do use classroom dojo as a team so that's kind of in there those are ones there's a bunch of extra ones in case they need to use them but that's where they can grab those pages then I start to do a general flow now I'm not all the way done with my general flow sheets because it's taking me some time to make sure that I am articulating it to the extent that if I do not have plans what is this teacher going to do with my kids I want them to understand what is it that they can do so I have things like ideas for different morning meeting activities that go through the arrival in the morning I'm gonna end up having some for math for reading for what we do during our choice time order redoing for content and how can they find those materials so I want them to be able to find everything and be able to pick up where I left off without having any sub plans now doesn't mean I'm not ever gonna write sub plans I'm always gonna write my sub plans unless like last Friday I couldn't because I was in so much pain with my migraine so that's where this general flow sheet is really really important it gives the guest teacher a really good idea of what it is that they want to do with my class and then finally I have a while you were away and so these are places where they can just put in any information so I have absent learners I always give away one Pride ticket winner so whoever was the help most helpful they were on they were kind of on it they can write their name here and then I have a sub ticket winner which is something new that I'm trying out this year where I will take down names and then I'm gonna put them into a drawing and I'm gonna get them a sub basically is all it is get it sub substitutes sandwich they're gonna get a sub sandwich for that those people who get identified as sub ticket winners and then I have to get for a space for students who just needed reminders but maybe did not get their dojos mark and then any notes that need to be placed in there she can place them right on that gene so that is it that is the general idea but my substitute binder speaking of just getting things together one of the things that I really need to get together or all of these papers that I have that are not organized that just need to get placed where they need to be so I'm gonna spend some time I'm gonna clean some of this stuff up and then hopefully you start getting some of these printed out to place inside of my binder so I cannot remember if I have shared this little tip before but I asked parents at the very beginning of the year if they would like to volunteer and I always ask for a variety of different volunteers for people to come into school and to do things at school people to do things at home and I make like a group message with those people and I will send out an email saying hey are you able to do a B or C for me if I send it home so one of the ways that I send things home is by using the lakeshore bags I love love love these because they're so unbelievably durable so I placed a couple of things that I need to be made into books because I just don't have the time to be able to do it but parents love to be able to help so I will send this home with a kid after I send out an email put some instructions in their materials that whatever it is that they might need to be able to complete the ask and I'll sit at home tomorrow so thought I just share that it's one of my favorite things I need to work on creating my graphic organizers for tomorrow it's just gonna save me some time in the morning and then I don't have to stress and worry about it I have to say really fast I'm gonna do a little plugin because I have made a ton of graphic organizers that I'm gonna show you guys right afterwards but I use them for my bridging literacy method so it is the structure in which I run my reading and my writing workshop I combined them into one which I call the bridging literacy method and I have now created which I'm very very excited about if you guys didn't watch the video about me holding myself accountable go and watch it it's super short easy to watch type of thing um but I talked about how I wanted to create a community of just somewhere for people to go to be able to be with other like-minded teachers who really want to work towards a very similar goal and within this community I wanted to provide as much support as possible like I wanted to do be able to give everything away that I utilize inside of my reading workshop my reading and my writing workshop so any graphic organizers that I use checklist that I use books that I might be using and give as much advice as possible so it's gonna have separate videos there's gonna be blog posts there's gonna be all different types it's set up in like a forum site at the moment well I've given away a lot of the graphic organizers that you're gonna see in just a moment and if they're inside of that bridging literacy community it's a it's my BLC membership site so I'm really really excited about it and I've gotten a lot of great people that are there they're engaged they're excited about it and it just makes me happy that I'm able to help them in ways that I just want to be able to help more because I don't feel like I'm doing enough of that so in order to get into this membership or what you kind of get a part of this membership is you can either go monthly or you can go yearly the monthly rate is seven dollars a month and then the yearly rate right now is $50 for the year if you are to sign up you would get locked in at this price so as the price increases as the site becomes bigger and bigger and bigger because that is my hope and dream for it to become something that is very successful so that I can continue making the videos I can to continue doing my live chats so on so forth I am as it starts to get bigger and better um the prices are gonna increase and with that you guys would end up getting locked in at this price so it's really really a good idea to go ahead and get on it now so that you're locked in at these prices because they're really really good prices for what you're gonna end up getting from it so you have those two options and what you're gonna get from it are the live replays so this was something that I really really struggled with guys it was a really hard decision for me but I struggled with taking down my live replays because I did want them to be up but unfortunately they're just not doing they're not doing as well and the purpose of having a live chat is to be able to have the engagement and the interaction and the talking with all of you it's not the same I could totally do a presentation in a video format in my classroom and it would totally be fine the purpose of the live chat is being able to engage and interact with my viewers who are on it and so I decided to take those down and I'm gonna put them up as little as replays inside of the membership so if you are a member of the PLC membership the bridging literacy community membership then you will have access to the library plays you're gonna have access to any other videos that I might put up whether it's talking about a mentor tax explaining how I used a graphic organizer different blog posts different resources that I'm going to give away for free all of that's going to be included inside of it so you're gonna notice that those live repays replays are not going to be available anymore they're gonna be within that membership and mainly it's what to get you guys to hopefully get engaged with me as much as possible like not engaged but engaged in the live chat itself but then also you add some benefit towards that PLC membership neither way I have that up I'm gonna leave a link down in the description box so if you guys want to go and check it out go and check it out I am very very proud of it my husband has been working really really hard with it he has been helping me so much with it so the website looks fantastic go and check it out I just love it but right now I need to make my graphic organizer anchor charts so I'm gonna make these bad boys and I'll show you what they look like afterwards first one up character analysis okay so I have to say that I'm a little bit bummed because my printer I guess when it when I print multiple copies of certain pages it like pushes it through and it feeds it super weird so they're a little bit misaligned one of them is super wonky but it's fine we're gonna deal it's gonna be great the kids are not gonna even care to be honest at the end of the day so let me show you the graphic organizers that I had to print for tomorrow okay so here is the first one one of them is a vocabulary graphic organizer and this one is for my fourth graders I'm introducing a few vocabulary words from our text that we read today so this one just goes into its write the sentence from the book your thoughts on the definition so getting them to think about some of the context clues that comes from it they so they have to give the definition of what they think it means they have to give the context clues then they find the definition and then they're going to write some synonyms to go along with it so they have three words is typically what I end up choosing from a text and then we keep it in a digital book that the kids end up making but they use the graphic organizer and like pick collage to be able to complete it so that's the first one the next one is a character change so with my sixth graders we've been working really hard on understanding character change and specifically the events that are causing the character to change and how the character is reacting to those events so really kind of digging deeper looking into that process but now what we're doing is we're gonna take the same graphic organizer we're gonna utilize it for our own writing so we're gonna take our characters out of our writing we've already identified the change because that was a previous lesson and now we're going to dig a little bit deeper and find the event so they're gonna brainstorm their events to be able to revise their writing and then get ready to submit by next week then we have this one is an extrinsic characteristics so I've always I always kind of tiptoe on this just a little bit because I don't want kids to learn that they judge people it's not a judgment piece so I want to always make sure that I talk to my kids very carefully about extrinsic characteristics and what this means but when we talk about extrinsic characteristics and getting kids to be able to see it it's like saying oh you have a wedding ring that's an extra ins at characteristics what can we infer from me having a wedding ring oh that she's married okay perfect so it's making observations like that another observation is a young girl in sorry I don't know why sometimes I just like get on a roll but in the book each kindness I believe it is the girl is wearing like a spring dress and the person who is speaking the character who's speaking says why is she wearing a spring dress when it's like freezing outside in its winter well those are some of the extras of characteristics well what can we infer about that what do we know what's happening based on all of the other pieces so kids are able to make inferences based off of the intrinsic or I'm sorry the extrinsic characteristics of their characters in this hex so we're talking about that piece we're identifying them within the text and then we're also trying to figure out what are the qualities that we can infer about them so something that I like I always say is I don't wear a ton of color I don't love color it's just not my thing I'm more of a Plain Jane like I just like the very neutrals and calming colors so these are conversations that we end up having but I am very very careful to say that we're not going to make judgment on people so we have a lot of those conversations so yeah okay but as you can see this one came out super wonky it's fine it's gonna be okay but that's one of them and then the next one is going to be a character analysis I don't necessarily need this one for tomorrow but I wanted to go ahead and have it anyways so this one is really just looking at what does the character say what is the character think what is the character do what is the character feel and then it comes up with a character trait so it's finding the evidence to be able to support the treats I went on ahead and I add the bullets because it just helps to keep them on track so those are my graphic organizers that I wanted to share with you okay so that are those are the graphic organizers I wanted to share those with you because those are up for free if you are a PLC member please know that the vocabulary one is going to be posted so it should have been posted this weekend if not give me until Monday and I will definitely have that one up and a little bit of an explanation of how I utilize that like in further detail so you guys have a better idea of how to put that into practice so got my graphic organizers ready it is six o'clock I should probably go ahead and start heading home Blaine is starting wrestling today he's really really nervous it's just so flippin adorable I love him to death but it's gonna be good for him to have another sport to be able to play because he is just so much energy so he is doing that ian is at home I'm gonna get my things packed up I'm gonna work on my sub plans at home so they I can share a little bit more of those tomorrow see you then so I have a really really busy day to day in fact we have one teacher that is out for a meeting or some training or something to that extent and then I have a doctor's appointment right at the very very end of the day so I have to leave a little bit before the kids are gonna go my other partner is gonna take care of my class to be able to dismiss them so that I can get there that means I don't have a ton of time in order to video today so I was out all day yesterday I had conferences from 8 o'clock in the morning all the way until 7 o'clock they went really really well but we were very very booked so there was very little time to take a breather but I'm so glad that I have conferences pretty much almost over we have one more evening commitment one more morning commitment but those are like the contractual pieces so we have those as pretty easy days we made Monday a really full day two yesterday a really full day so I'm feeling really really good about this guys November is such a crazy month for me and I think it just goes by so quickly and there's just so much for me to have to get done during this time I'm feeling pretty good but I wanted to show you guys because I have was not able to finish getting all of the pieces for my set binder together but I did want to go ahead and show you how I left everything for when I had a sub yesterday now this is not exact - so keep that in mind but what I try to do is I always put my binder first and then I had my lesson plans but if so if you want to take a little peek of what my lesson plans look like it's a really really simple I do a table within word I try to keep it as simple as possible have my x and what block it is the instructions here and I try to break them down to where it's like the steps are broken down and then I have the materials list here so that is pretty much it I usually bold or underline some of the most important parts that I really want them to pay attention to and she was really kind and left a lot of little notes as they were going through to kind of keep me in touch of where they are so I left that there I had my folder and my lunch folder as well are here and then I left her my morning message so I had some morning activities that that they were going to complete here I left her my read aloud that they were going to do with theme and then I left him a practice for them to be able to do and then I had as well the math practices for any of the students that were working there so I kept it all in order so it was nice and neat so this is the view that she saw when she walked into the classroom which I feel like that looks really nice it's very organized and very you know put together now I also have to say that the Rube Goldberg projects are finally finished today is going to be the reflection day but I have to be honest they left my room a little bit of a mess so just to help kind of give my mind frame right to start the day in a really great way I'm gonna spend some time and I'm just gonna clean I'm gonna listen to a podcast I'm gonna put that on I'm still listening to true crime obsessed love love love them guys like I'm truly obsessed with them haha that's funny but I'm gonna spend a little bit of time cleaning up and I think that's just gonna make me feel al a bit more ready to have a really good Friday today was where your bright colors and your jeans day which makes me feel really good that I got to wear jeans however I don't really have a ton of bright colors this was the best I could find so I support Darth Vader on world kindness week he needs to learn to be kind it's fine I hope that was able to give you guys some really good ideas about what to put into your own sub binder I am gonna put this product up for sell in my store if you don't want to have to go through the whole situation of making your own I'm also gonna put in the wording that I'm using for all of the other pieces except for anything that might be a little bit more private I'm not gonna put those in there but you're gonna see some of the wording that I use for different procedures for any of the drills for any of the common day items or just the general here's what my class would look like if I was their type of situation so it is gonna be up in my store you guys can go and check it out and yeah so I hope that you guys enjoyed this video it is getting late my son is probably getting ready to go to soccer Blaine is and he had called me today guys it was the weirdest thing I was getting all the kids ready for school for the end of the day at the school and Ian calls me and I'm like hello and of course I'm worried because why does my son call me he never ever calls me and he was like hey how's it going and I'm like I'm at school he was like oh I know I just wanted to call you I'm like I'm at school he's like I know and I was like no I'm teaching he goes oh you're still teaching it was the weirdest thing ever I feel like you did he miss me I have no idea so I'm gonna go home figure out what's going on there and then get ready to start uploading some materials into the bridging literacy community membership whoa it's very very wordy the BLC membership so I'm gonna start working on that and then getting my sub plans ready for next week so hope you enjoyed this video make sure to give it a thumbs up and I will see you guys all next time bye

Channel: The Lettered Classroom

Views: 6,924

Rating: 4.9120879 out of 5

Keywords: teacher tips, The Lettered Classroom, classroom decor, first year teacher, classroom setup, classroom organization, a day in the life of a teacher, elementary teacher, middle school teacher, education, how to be a teacher, how to teach, new teacher, teacher vlog, weekly teacher vlog, classroom ideas, classroom inspirations, teacher organization, upper elementary teacher, teacher life, sub binder, sub tub, sustitute teacher, sub plans

Id: _WBv1psbF-w

Length: 30min 45sec (1845 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 17 2019