We have all been there. Watching the hours slip by as the teacher does her substitute lesson plans knowing she’ll be out whether it’s due to sickness, needing a much needed ‘mental health day,’ or one of the many teaching conferences that one must attend every year. It’s almost easier to just show up than it is to make plans for a substitute; not knowing just how much learning will be going on while you’re out.
However, putting together sub plans and prepping materials shouldn’t be a daunting task.
Today I wanted to share a quick ELA lesson plan that’s the easiest thing to prep when you plan to be out of the classroom. It takes the popular story of Miss Nelson Is Missing by James Marshall as a read aloud and allows your students to practice those reading skills they’ve been working on all year long. You can use these pages as whole group, individual work, or even place it in a reading center for continued practice.
Let’s take a peek shall we?
Missing!
A missing poster is the ultimate little project for your kiddos while you’re out. It mixes a little fun with skill practice such as character traits (physical and personality). Students get to draw and color their own missing poster, come up with a unique reward for finding the teacher, and portrait.
Story Map
This story map asks students to recall key details and information about the story from beginning, middle, to end. It also guides students, making it easy on the substitute, by asking questions for each part of the retell. Also, at the end students must think about what lesson the students of Room 207 learned from their experiences with Miss Swamp.
Before & After
An important skill students should be able to have a grasp on by the end of second grade is being able to understand how characters change over time and because of the various events throughout the story. Miss Nelson’s students definitely go through a change from their behavior at the beginning of the story and at the end. This worksheet helps guide students to make connections from the class and determine that changing event.
Point of View Practice
Another skill-set that’s important for kiddos to learn, which can often be a difficult one, is point of view and how different characters feel in certain situations. This handout pulls quotes from the story for students to explain what that character is thinking during that part of the story!
This download comes complete with a full writing prompt from planning pages (for both male and female teachers!) and publishing paper. There are three different kinds of publishing paper: one with space for illustrations, full writing page, and additional pages for those lengthier writers. The planning sheets can be folded and glued into the kid’s writing notebooks (for safe keeping) and the final drafts can be displayed in the classroom!
Every page in this download is geared towards specific Common Core standards. At the top of each page there is a specific standard that is provided, making it an easy tool for anecdotals or just simply a tailored practice for each skill.
Comic Writers
A fun take on the traditional writing prompts is this comic book writing sheet! Have students take their planning sheets and develop their work into a graphic novel! Writing skills can be more than just the written word, so for some variety have your kids share their stories through illustrations.
Inferring
Making inferences can be another tricky reading skill for students and these worksheets, again guide students into making conclusions from what they already know and clues from the story.
A group activity that can be a great guiding lesson about inferring is the popular: What’s In My Bag? Have a purse or bag pre-prepared for the substitute that has various items inside. Have the sub pull out one item at a time and on an anchor chart record student responses. The kids should be thinking about what they know about that item and what they can infer about their teacher.
Example: public library card - the teacher likes to read
Students think about the item (the library card) and what they already know about it and why people have them. Then, they are to connect that with what they can infer about their teacher and why she/he would have it in their bag.
This Substitute ELA lesson plan and accompanying activities will surely be a snap to throw together and ensure every teacher that skill practice is happening within the classroom while they’re out!
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