Thank You, Teachers

Teachers do many things that make my job as a sub much easier. Here are just  a few:

Attendance/lunch count - This may seem easy until you realize all the places students may be before they settle in your classroom - breakfast, getting extra reading help, in the library, etc. The sub has no way of knowing who is really absent when the bell rings. The day gets off to a good start when this process is automatic. Some teachers use a pocket chart labeled with students' names. The cards in the pockets have hot lunch on one end and cold lunch on the other. The cards are backwards in the morning, and students turn the cards around with their choice on top. Some classrooms have magnetic name tags that students place under the lunch column of their choice. Some teachers have a SMART Board chart and students slide their names under the column headings. In these classes, students take care of the lunch count before heading off to other places. All of these methods take care of both attendance and lunch. Life is good!

SMART Board file access - All of the teachers I've subbed for have left all of the files I need to use open on their computers. That works great unless I accidentally close one and have no idea what path to follow to find it again. Last week, a teacher solved that problem for me. He put a folder labeled with the date on his computer desktop. It contained everything I needed that day. FANTASTIC! Since the folder contained copies of his original files, he didn't need to worry that I would accidentally save any changes.

Workbook key - One teacher took a blank math workbook and made a teacher's key. It is so much easier to use than the bulky teacher's manual that has small snapshots of the student workbook pages. It helps both the teacher and the sub.