Check-off List for Substitute Teacher (s) during Substitute Shortages
During our nationwide substitute-teacher shortage, we can no longer count on one person to cover all of our classes.
After giving two months notice for a medical appointment, I left my usual sub letter and plans only to return to no notes and no names as to who covered which class.
To avoid future aggravation, I created this additional form that you can download here.
If you need asynchronous Spanish lessons so that students can work independently with substitutes that don’t know Spanish, please consider my cultural lessons below.
Cultural Activities:
Colombia Hidden Pictures.mp4 from ellen shrager on Vimeo.
We have eight so far with four more in progress.
REVIEW LESSONS:
INTRODUCE NEW VOCABULARY:

Spanish Teacher Summer Prep to “Just Prep During Your Prep” during the New School Year
Summer is so precious.
Last year was so insane. Take one hour to learn 5 Sanity Savers for this upcoming year and enjoy the freebies!
5 STEP CHALLENGE
Spanish Teacher Sanity Savers – Engaging Spanish Asynchronous Cultural Lessons for Substitutes, Extra Credit, or for You.
If one more well-intentioned person tells me to take care of myself this school year while adding on more responsibilities that prevent me from taking care of myself, I may not react with my filter in place!
Do you feel the same way?
Luckily I was talking to the Venezuelans that I support and these innovative souls helped me to create my three mandatory asynch sub lessons that I need for my virtual and concurrent face-to-face students.
After my students did the first one, and raved about it being one of their better days with a sub, and, my being human, I thought, “these are great why waste them on a sub?”
So we created three more and will continue to add to them. They are available individually or as a group.
At their own pace with Google Slides, students learn about nine cultural icons through YouTube videos, answer questions, and at the end, search the hidden picture for the icons.
Students find this a great break from online games and especially love the food segments.
Treat yourself to the freedom of knowing you have a no-prep lesson for any emergency. The only thing you have to decide is if you will include the answers to the hidden pictures or save them for later. See videos below of each country.
Update: These can also be used for extra credit for students.
If you j
ust need an emergency activity, read the next post about “Encuentra las diferencias” for that emergency activity when things fall apart.
All net proceeds help three Venezuelan families – meet them in the video below as they open three boxes I sent to them.
Spanish Class Cultural Fix for Wacky Schedule Days, Fast Finishers, and Emergency Spanish Back-Up Activities
My classroom has two kinds of fast-finishers: those whose who just need something for a few, variable amount of minutes and those who need something for a good ten to fifteen minutes.
For a few minutes, students love trying to guess the word. I usually post 3 and it keeps them engaged – each one takes just a few minutes so they can quickly rejoin the class. If the class needs more time, they can do another one. Up to 450 from Spanish 1 are available here.
Engaging Spanish Culture “Find the Differences” drawings are life-savers for when the activities you planned for class take less time – and you are being observed! Either print out a set or set-it up for your online classes and quickly access them seamlessly.
Students find them engaging and they just may give you that break you need to help students catch up or to write that referral.
Keep them in reserve for when students return early from an assembly or a fire drill takes up most of the period and you need a short engaging activity in order to save your planned lesson for the next day. You’ll be glad you did.
Although they come in groups of two, I do use the collection of over 20 with my fast finishers because these puzzles build resilience – one of the major keys to success, according to research that I trust.
Fast finishers enjoy these – even those who tend to quickly go back to their video games – are intrigued.
I also sprinkle them into spice up our bellwork.
Each one has 10 differences and the topics include:
EL DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS GUATEMALA
LA INDEPENDENCIA DE CHILE – BAILE LA CUECA
LA INDEPENDENCIA DE CHILE – COMIDA
PARAGUAY BAILE DE LAS BOTELLAS
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