Substitute Teacher Ideas for Creative Lessons

Successful Substitute Lessons for Elementary, Middle and High School

Nov 8, 2009

Listening Ideas for the Substitute Teacher, click

Substitute teachers need good, well planned ideas to keep students interested and learning. Here are some suggestions for reading, writing and discussion classes.

Substitute teachers are often called in at the last minute to save a situation in which the main teacher has had to leave the classroom. Most of the time, teachers will have left clear instructions or lesson plans for the substitute to follow; but sometimes this is not the case.

Substitute Teachers Need to be Ready for the Classroom

Substitute staff should be armed with a range of choices to use in the classroom should there be no plans, or in the case of the students not responding to the given lesson. Neither the students nor the substitute should feel abandoned, helpless or punished. A well stocked folder, with categorized ideas will help maintain a good, successful, worthwhile lesson.

Creative Ideas that Teach: A guide for Substitutes

Writing Ideas:

Bring a bag of props to the classroom. These can be used for memory games, as a focus for descriptive writing, or to organize an activity such as a “TV home shopping network” in which students are divided into pairs and have to create a presentation to sell one of the items from the prop box. Props in the classroom are very useful materials for creative work in lessons.

Reading Ideas:

Keep copies of stories that can be read to the students. Attached to the story, keep a list of questions that can be written on the board. Students have to answer in writing. Collect and store a variety of age-appropriate tales and essays.

Listening Ideas:

Keep a number of CD’s of purchased recorded stories. The students listen. Write already prepared questions on the board. Students can either discuss the story or answer in writing.

Listening to Music:

For communication, music, creative writing, or drama classes, choose a number of songs that represent different genres of music: classical, jazz, rock, country, for example.Prepare the selection on one writeable cd so that the excerpts are easy to play and even easier to access.

Prepare a worksheet with the following headings in a table format.

Name of musical piece or song
Words the music makes you think of
Emotions the music makes you feel
Name of the movie that might use this as a theme

The activity:

The teacher plays a piece of music. (For example, a light, fast song)
The students write about each piece as shown in this example.

Name of musical piece or song: “The Happy Man”
Word the music makes you think of: bubbles, jokes, and a funny clown
Emotions the music makes you feel: nostalgic, amused, awkward
Name of the movie that might use this as a theme: “The Traveling Salesman”

Any number of pieces of music can be played depending on the time and the interest of the students. This activity can be enjoyed by all age groups. Different musical collections can be put together by the teacher to suit younger or older students, or a particular group of kids.

Keeping Material Organized for Substitute Lessons

As a teacher or a substitute teacher, maintain a drawer with clearly categorized, age-appropriate material such as the above mentioned books and materials so that they can be found as soon as a request to sub is called in.

Substituting should never be baby-sitting. Both the teacher and the students should feel that teaching and learning is taking place. Good lessons, well planned ideas, and confidence of the substitute will combine to build a useful and worthwhile lesson.

The copyright of the article Substitute Teacher Ideas for Creative Lessons in Substitute Teacher Lessons is owned by Lucille Lever. Permission to republish Substitute Teacher Ideas for Creative Lessons in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.