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Sub Binder Template: Editable Pages You Fill In Once

Susan, The Honey Press 11 min read

An elementary classroom wall painted yellow, with a daily schedule board running from 8:00 arrival to 3:10 dismissal, a monthly calendar, a specials schedule, an alphabet strip, and a whiteboard that reads Welcome.
Photo by Far Chinberdiev on Unsplash

An editable sub binder template is worth having if you can fill it in once and reuse it every sick day until June. That only works if it keeps three kinds of pages apart:

  1. Pages you fill in once: the welcome letter, who is who, the schedule, arrival and dismissal, procedures, the behavior plan, safety, who to call.
  2. Pages you update when the class changes: the class list, health and allergies, students who need support, helpers, the seating chart.
  3. Pages you leave blank: the daily plan, the week at a glance, and the notes the sub leaves for you.

Mix them up and the template goes stale within weeks. Keep them apart and the big job happens once, with small updates after that. Below is a free place to start, what goes on each kind of page, the pages to check each week, and whether to keep your copy as a fillable PDF or a PowerPoint.

For what to include in a sub binder, section by section in the order a substitute reaches for it, see the sub binder checklist. This post is about the template itself.

Start free: the Emergency Sub Binder Starter Kit

The quickest way to get a sub binder template free is the Emergency Sub Binder Starter Kit. It is 14 pages you print and fill in by hand, not an editable file. It has a note for the substitute, a who-to-call and dismissal page, a 15-minute checklist for putting the folder together, a roster, a “What Happened Today” sheet for the sub, and one math review page each for grades 3, 4 and 5, with answer keys.

The kit is built for 3rd to 5th grade, because its math pages are. For Kindergarten to 2nd grade, the editable template further down and the grade packets on the math sub plans page are the better fit.

Layer one: the pages that never change

You type these once and touch them again only when something at school changes. They are most of the writing, which is why they belong in an editable file.

The welcome letter. Write it as a letter from you, with blanks for your name, grade, room, the nearest adult who can help and the office extension. Tell the sub where to start: the schedule and today’s plan, then the health page before the students arrive. Add a line for the moment a student says “that is not how we do it,” pointing the sub to your procedures page.

The schedule. Times first, then subjects, then where. Add a line for the days that differ: early release, assemblies, the Thursday library swap. Specials and pull-outs need their own grid: who leaves the room, when, and whether they walk alone or get picked up.

Arrival and dismissal. Where backpacks go, how lunch count is taken, who rides which bus, who walks, who gets picked up and by whom. A substitute cannot improvise dismissal, so write it out in full. Include one line for the adult who arrives and is not on the list: the student stays in the room and the sub calls the office. Pickup permissions and custody questions are decided by the office under school policy, not by the sub at the door.

Procedures and behavior. Write the exact words, not a description of them. “Say: voices off when the lights blink” works. Add who to call, and where a student goes, if a student is unsafe. Add a “please do not” line, because a helpful substitute with spare time may start your next lesson, hand out the devices, or run a game whose rules only your class knows.

Safety and who to call. Fire drill, lockdown and severe weather procedures, where the class meets outside, the evacuation route, and the adults to call in the order you would call them.

Layer two: the pages that change with the class

This is where editable matters most. The class list, the health and allergy page, the support page, the helpers and the seating chart all change during the year. A new student arrives in November, two friends stop sitting together in January, a reading group moves.

On a handwritten binder you rewrite those pages or, more often, let them drift. With an editable file you change one page and reprint that page alone. Date the bottom of each class page so you can see which one is out of date.

Three rules for this layer:

  • Keep the health, allergy and support pages private. They stay inside the binder, for the substitute only. Never post them on a wall or keep them in a shared folder.
  • Initials are fine on the support page. The sub needs to know what helps a student, not the student’s file.
  • The health page points to the nurse. List who has an allergy or a health plan, what the plan says to do, and where the nurse is. Medication, allergy emergencies and anything medical go through the nurse and the office under your school’s policy. Copy what the nurse’s records say rather than writing your own version, and update the page when those records change.

Layer three: the pages you leave blank

The instinct is to fill in the daily plan page in September with this week’s lessons. A few weeks later those lessons are done, and a stale plan is worse than none, because a sub will follow it faithfully.

So leave the plan pages blank and print several copies:

  • A daily plan page, one per day, with time, subject, what to do, and where the materials are.
  • A week at a glance, one line per subject per day, for an absence that runs longer than a day.
  • The notes back: what got finished, who helped, who had a hard time, messages, visitors, a behavior log.

A substitute checklist belongs here too. Write it once (before the students arrive, during the day, before leaving) and print a fresh copy for each sub to tick.

When you know about an absence ahead of time, fill in the daily plan the night before. For the emergency copy, the plan does not need to name this week’s lesson. It points to your standing emergency work: review a stranger can hand out cold, with answer keys, and more of it than the fastest finisher can get through. What that work should contain is covered in what good sub plans actually contain. For ready-made weeks, the math sub plans page and the reading sub plans page have a full week of plans for each grade from Kindergarten to 5th. The template tells the sub where the work is. It is not the work.

Sub plan binder template: pages to update weekly

A sub plan binder template stays useful only if you look at it. Five minutes on a Friday afternoon is enough. Check these pages in this order:

  • The daily plan page. Is there a blank copy on top? Does the emergency copy still point to work that is actually in the folder?
  • The emergency work. Count the copies. If the last sub used a day’s pages, run more before Monday.
  • The class list and seating chart. Compare the date at the bottom of each page with the last change in the room. If a student joined or moved seats, reprint that page.
  • The notes back from the last sub. Read them, file them, and put a fresh blank copy in.
  • The schedule. Add anything unusual in the coming week: an assembly, a field trip, a testing day, a changed specials rotation.

On its own, the daily plan page is what most people mean by a sub plans template, or an emergency sub plans template when it points to standing work: one sheet with time, subject, what to do, and where the materials are. The binder around it is what lets a stranger use that sheet without calling you.

Sub binder template for elementary school

The same three layers work from Kindergarten to 5th grade. What changes is how much the substitute has to do for the children, and that shows up on a few specific pages.

Kindergarten to 2nd grade. Many children cannot read the directions line on a worksheet yet, so the daily plan page needs a note telling the sub to read it aloud for every page. Arrival and dismissal get more detail, because more children are picked up by an adult. Name the helpers, since a young class leans on them. Break the work into shorter pieces on the plan page, fifteen minutes or less at a stretch.

3rd to 5th grade. Students can work alone for longer, so the plan page should say what they do when they finish. The schedule grid gets busier with pull-outs, band, and rotating specials. The support page matters more for work habits: who needs a reference chart, who works better away from a friend.

One template can serve a whole grade-level team if each teacher keeps their own layer-two pages. The layer-one pages often match across a hallway: the building map, the safety routes, the office numbers.

Fillable PDF or PowerPoint?

Both count as editable, and they suit different teachers.

A fillable PDF opens in Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is free, or in Preview on a Mac. You click a blank and type, and you cannot knock the layout out of place. The trade-off is that each box is a fixed size. If your dismissal list does not fit, you shorten it or finish it in pen.

A PowerPoint opens in PowerPoint, Keynote or Google Slides. If every blank is a text box, you can resize one, add a line, or rename a heading to match what your school calls things. If the page designs are locked backgrounds, clicking a blank will not move anything else on the slide. Choose PowerPoint if you like to customize, or if you want the file in Google Slides so you can update the class list from home. If you do, fill in the health and support pages on paper rather than in the online copy, and check who the file is shared with.

Printing and writing by hand is a fine third option. It is not editable, so every change to layer two means a rewrite.

Keep one master file in one format and reprint class pages as they change. If the PDF and the slides share page numbers, you can reprint a page from either without hunting for it.

Editable sub binder templates

If you would rather not build the pages yourself, the Editable Sub Binder sorts its pages into the same three layers on its Start Here page. It is 41 pages, not tied to a grade level, and comes as a fillable PDF and an editable PowerPoint that also opens in Google Slides, with the same page numbers in both. It has three binder covers, spine and tub labels, and six section dividers: The Day, My Class, Routines, Safety, Plans, and Notes Back.

Whichever you use, fill in the layer-one pages while you are well, date the layer-two pages, print a stack of the blank ones, and tell the office and the teacher next door where the binder lives.

When you need the plans too

A binder with no work in it still leaves you writing plans at 6 a.m. If you need the work as well, each grade’s Sub Plans Bundle puts the Editable Sub Binder together with that grade’s math and reading sub plans:

If you already have a binder you like, the math and reading packets are also sold one grade at a time. The math sub plans page and the reading sub plans page list them.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a free sub binder template?

Yes. The Emergency Sub Binder Starter Kit is free. It is 14 pages with a sub note template, a checklist, and math review pages for 3rd to 5th grade, and you print it and fill it in by hand. The free sub plans checklist is a one-page PDF you can build any binder against.

What goes in a sub plan binder template?

Three kinds of pages. The ones you fill in once: the welcome letter, schedule, arrival and dismissal, procedures, safety and who to call. The ones you update when the class changes: the class list, health and allergies, support, helpers and the seating chart. And the ones you leave blank: the daily plan, the week at a glance and the notes back from the sub.

Can I edit the sub binder template?

The Editable Sub Binder comes as a fillable PDF and an editable PowerPoint, so you can type into the forms and reprint a single page when something changes. The free Starter Kit is a print-and-write file, not an editable one.

Susan, The Honey Press