All About Substitute Binders

During last school year, I had a medical emergency that required an overnight stay in the hospital.  While I previously had every good intention of making a “sub tub,” I still hadn’t.  Now I needed one more than ever! Although my amazing teammates and mom (also a teacher) polished up my lesson plans, there was no way for the sub to know all the “ins and outs” of my classroom.  I wanted to make sure that never happened again!

All About Substitute Binders

The first I thing I did when I returned from the hospital was make a Substitute Binder!

I compiled all the information a sub would need to know on any given day and put it all together in one place.

Here’s a list of things you might want to include if you make a sub binder:

• Note from the teacher (you)
• School policies
• Class List
• Classroom Rules
• Water and restroom information and policies
• Behavior (positive as well as consequences)
• Daily schedule (Do you have certain specials that are only on particular days of the week?)
• Arrival and dismissal procedures
• Homework (Should the sub do anything different if it is Monday or Friday?)
• Time fillers (What can the sub do if they finish all the lesson plans before the day ends?)
• Odds and Ends (Where’s the staff restroom?  Do you have extra duties the sub should fill?)

I also think you should encourage the substitute to write you a note about how their day went!  You can grab this cute and free note here.

As soon as I returned to school, I told my students all about the binder.  I showed them the special place where the binder would always stay.  We talked about how they should always direct a substitute to the binder.  From then on I knew that a substitute would always have the information he or she needed in classroom, regardless of whether or not my absence was planned.  There’s no price that can be put on peace of mind!

If you would like to use my substitute binder to create your own, you can find the editable version in my TeachersPayTeachers store!  It also has pages for every topic you can imagine and even gives tons of suggested information.  It’s as easy as download, type, print, and you’re done. 😉

Do you have a substitute binder or sub tub?  What’s inside?