The Sub Diaries

Hello everyone,
Apologies for my lack of blog posts, I have been busy on the subbing circuit and with grinds and courses after work I just don’t have enough time in the day sometimes. It has been a busy week here. I was SNA subbing on Monday and Tuesday. I had to make an emergency dash from school yesterday evening as my sister had a beautiful baby girl, a few weeks early! All is well thank God. I then ended up in Limerick hospital myself last night with an asthma attack! I forgot to pack my inhalers with all the excitement. Home now and all is well. I missed my Aistear course today though and had to turn down a day’s subbing tomorrow. : ((

!

Enough about me! This post is about subbing. A number of people have contacted me asking what I do when the teacher doesn’t leave work for the children. It’s great when the teacher has a short note telling you what to cover, but sometimes if it’s an unexpected day this doesn’t happen. Take last Friday for example, I had to sub for my sister but I didn’t know until the morning. Luckily I was prepared, had my worksheets and art book, grabbed a few ingredients from the kitchen for a science experiment and I was good to go. I’ll put up photos tomorrow of the books I used most.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I just have a variety of workbooks for each subject which I bring and photocopy. I also have my hard drive which i just couldn’t go to school without. I have a lot of power-points and worksheets saved to it based on the curriculum and the class books, e.g. the famine, industries, people at work, Irish themes and photo stories etc. As you all know I download loads of resources from Teachers pay Teachers!

One book I use all the time for Art is Usborne’s ‘100 ( or 500 can’t remember) things to Make and Do with Cardboard‘. It has a green cover and my sister bought it for me on Amazon. It saves me so much time, I hate trawling the internet for art ideas!

I also have a little notebook where I have all my science experiments written down. I love teaching science so I usually try to squeeze in an experiment at some stage in the day. I also have a notebook with English and Irish word games to fill five minutes in the day. I like having them to hand so always have them with me.

I have my subbing case which I’ll add a photo of tomorrow. I have my worksheets, hard drive, calculator, whistle, bell, panadol, pens, post its, subject notebooks etc in it. I also have a few novelty bits of stationery for the children to use, which they love! I have a gigantic rubber from the 2E Shop which is very popular, some extra large pencils, and general bits and  pieces like that, all from the 2E Shop! I also bring little novelty toys, like spinning tops and yoyo’s for the small ones in case they fall or get upset.

I have to scale back though, I arrive in school with my handbag, my sub bag, my sub case, and my resources box. It’s impossible to carry it all! Also I don’t use half of the stuff I bring.

Basically, I what I have found the most useful has been:
My Bun go Barr workbook ( bought new for 5 or 6 euro)
English skills/workbooks ( found in 2nd hand shop, brand new, e2)
Maths: Shadow Books ( bought new)
SESE books found in 2nd hand shop-also brand new.
Fact books, e.g. on sharks, inventors, explorers etc
Art: Usborne ‘100 Things to Make and Do with Cardboard. I also have the general ‘100 Things to Make and Do’ Usborne book but I prefer the cardboard one.

and most of all, my hard-drive!

Hope it helps!
Valerie
X

[pb_builder]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *