Three Low-Prep Emergency Lessons for Rough Days

Rough days are challenging for everyone, but if you’re a teacher you know it’s a whole different thing. Sometimes you need an emergency lesson so a rough day doesn’t become a FREE day for students! My last post HERE offered three lesson suggestions that required absolutely NO PREP. No printing, no copying, nada.

In this post, I will offer three new ideas that will require just a bit of advance planning but are completely worth adding to your repertoire. Whether you just need a day to sit in the back of the room and grade projects, or you’ve had to call in a sub, I hope these low-prep emergency lessons will make your rough days a little easier.

3 Low-Prep Emergency Lessons

Lesson 1: Make a Poster

Prep and/or materials required:

• Colored paper or construction paper
• Colored pencils or markers

Instructions for students:

• Choose any key term from our current chapter
• Make a poster that includes the following:
  • key term
  • definition
  • example or detail
  • illustration

Tips for this lesson:

• Let students choose their own word or assign key terms so they all are covered
• Allow students to work alone or in pairs
• If time permits, let students vote on the best poster and give bonus points to the winner

Lesson 2: Create an Infographic or Graphic Organizer

Prep and/or materials required:

• Decide whether you’d like students to create an infographic or graphic organizer. Generally, an infographic will be more advanced.
• Your students will need to know what an infographic (or graphic organizer) is in order for this lesson to succeed. So, unless you’ve used these in your classroom before, you will need to prepare an introduction and examples to get them started. Here are some ideas:
  • Search the internet for “infographic” or “free infographic template” and you will have many examples to choose from. In a 1:1 classroom, students can do this themselves. And, they can use the templates provided to create a digital infographic. Otherwise, I suggest printing a few of these out, laminating them, and offering them as samples.
  • For graphic organizers, you can do the same thing. If you’d like to provide templates, click on the image below to see the ones in my TpT store. NOTE: These are FREE to newsletter subscribers. Just sign up using the form on the right side of this page and you’ll have access to my Free Resource Library.
• Make sure materials such as colored paper, markers, etc. are available. Rulers and drawing stencils can help students be even more creative.

Instructions for Students:

• Create an infographic (or graphic organizer) about a major concept in our current chapter.
• Be sure to plan out your content and create a rough draft to make sure your graphic flows and contains accurate information.

Tips for this lesson:

• Don’t try this lesson unless you are confident that students understand these types of graphics. It will only create a headache for you or your sub!
• Infographics look really cool when two pieces of paper are taped together (vertically) to create a long, thin graphic.
• If time permits or the next day, conduct a gallery walk so students can see each other’s work.

Lesson 3: Show a Science Video

Prep and/or materials required:

• First, let me say this, “You can’t just SHOW a video.” You know and I know that students will sleep, read, text, talk, or anything else during a video. So, the number 1 rule here is: Choose something awesome!
• The next rule is you HAVE to create a worksheet to go along with the video. This takes a little time, but if you’re like me, you’re already watching cool science-y videos all the time anyway. So, the next time you’re watching something you think your students will love (or at least be grossed out by) create a worksheet while you’re watching. Here’s how I do it:
  • Have paper and pencil ready and write down a statement from the video WORD FOR WORD.
  • Select statements that include a cool fact or important term.
  • Aim for one sentence every 2 or 3 minutes. You can adjust this based on your kiddos. Some classes will need more to keep them focused. I usually have between 15 and 20 questions for a 50-60 minute video.
  • When you type these statements up later, select one word to omit from each sentence so that this list becomes a fill-in-the-blank worksheet. Choose words that are easy to hear and at least relatively easy to spell. See more tips below.
• Make copies for all your students and put them in an emergency sub folder along with the video or instructions for accessing the video.

Instructions for students:

• Watch the video. Don’t do anything else (sleep, text, talk, read, etc.).
• Fill in the blanks on the worksheet as you watch. Don’t worry if you miss one or two. And, don’t worry about spelling.
• Enjoy!

Tips for this lesson:

• Students will sometimes panic when they hear the sentence in the video and are not sure if they got the right word. Reminding them that missing one or two will not matter should help. I usually repeat the first one after it comes up to make sure everyone has it and is on track.
• Grade this. I give two free ones and one point for each one after that. It’s an easy grade for them and quick to grade for you or your sub. And, if you don’t grade it, they won’t watch the next video.
• I always had two videos and sets of copies in the third drawer of my lab desk. Some years I used both and some years I didn’t, but I always knew they were there. 🙂

A little prep goes a LONG way

Investing a little time now in preparing these low-prep emergency lessons will be SO worth it when a rough day comes along. And, you know it will! Because this is life, and you’re human, and stuff happens.

I really hope these ideas make your teacher life a little easier. A rough day doesn’t have to be a FREE day for your students! Do you have an emergency lesson that you rely on? Share it with other teachers in the comments.

Happy Teaching!

Carla