Emergency sub plans for 1st grade have to allow for one thing upper-grade plans can ignore: many of your students cannot yet read the directions on their own. So the plan is a script for the adult, with work attached. Here is what goes in the folder:
- Reading: one short passage a day that the sub reads aloud once before the children read it themselves, a few questions with three choices each, then a draw-and-write page.
- Math: review the class has already done, with the sub reading each directions line aloud before anyone starts.
- Answer keys the sub can use without knowing the unit.
- A note with what only you know: your attention signal, who needs a reading buddy, and how every child goes home.
For the general case, what good sub plans actually contain sets out the five parts, and the 4th grade version shows how different an older room is.
Reading: short, heard once, then theirs
A 1st grade class in the fall spans a wide range of readers, from children still sounding out short words to a few reading chapter books. A sub cannot run guided reading groups and should not try. What a sub can do is read one passage aloud while every child points to the words, then have them read it again with a partner or alone.
That read-aloud matters most. The children who cannot read the passage yet have still heard every sentence, so they are not shut out of the questions that follow.
Keep the passage short enough to get through twice: large print, short sentences, numbered paragraphs. The numbers give a stuck child somewhere to look. The sub can say “Go back to the passage. The answer is in there. Let us find the paragraph,” and point to a number. A first grader can find paragraph 3.
Keep the questions to three choices, and tell the sub it is fine to read a question aloud to any child who asks. The point is to check what they understood, not whether they can decode the question.
Draw-and-write: the page every child can start
If I could leave only one kind of page for a 1st grade sub, it would be draw-and-write: a prompt tied to the day’s passage, a box to draw in, and primary writing lines for one or two sentences.
Every child can begin. A child who cannot write a sentence yet can still draw, so nobody sits frozen because the first step is out of reach.
It stretches to fit. A fast finisher adds color and detail to the drawing, or finds a word from the passage and underlines it. A slower child draws and writes one sentence. Both are done when time is called.
It checks itself. A short checklist at the bottom (I drew a picture, I wrote a sentence, capital and end mark) lets a child answer “am I done?” without asking the sub.
The sub also needs to know what a finished page looks like, because “answers will vary” gives them nothing to say at the table. For a prompt like “draw something you lost and then found,” a complete response is a picture that matches the writing, a sentence that says what was lost and where it was found, a capital at the start and an end mark at the finish. The sub can say that to a first grader, and you can use the same words the next morning.
Math: read the line, then let them work
A 1st grade math page usually has one line of directions at the top: add the numbers, write the time, answer each question about tens and ones. Some of the class cannot read that line, so the plan should tell the sub to read it aloud for every page, then let the class work.
Keep the day in short pieces: a warm up page, two main pages, and an early finisher page for whoever races ahead. A fresh page is a natural restart for a first grader’s attention.
One thing specific to the fall: make sure the math is review your class has actually met. In October, a 1st grade class may not have reached telling time or tens and ones yet. Look down the day list and pull any day that is not safe. A spare day can stand in, but check it the same way. A sub cannot fix a page nobody taught.
The note: what only you can write
The packet can carry the minute-by-minute plan. The note is for what nobody outside your room knows, and in 1st grade that is mostly routines and safety, not math. Keep it to one page:
- Your attention signal. The clap pattern or call-and-response your class already knows.
- Bathroom and water. One at a time, a pass on the hook, whatever your rule is.
- Readers who need a buddy. First names only: who should hear the questions read aloud, and which strong reader can sit beside them.
- Going home. Every child, and how: bus number, car line, after care, walker. Put it on its own list and tell the sub to check it at the door. If a note from home or a phone call changes a child’s pickup, or an adult the sub does not recognize arrives, the sub sends it to the office and follows school dismissal policy. The office, not the sub note, holds custody and pickup restrictions.
- Health and safety. Where the nurse and the office are, and where allergy and health plans are kept under your school’s policy. The sub does not give any medication; anything medical goes to the nurse or the office.
- Behavior. The child who struggles at transitions, and the one line that helps. Anything beyond that goes to the office or a named colleague next door.
- What not to start. No new lesson from the teacher’s guide, no centers with rules only your class knows, no tablets.
The substitute binder checklist covers the rest of the binder, section by section, and there is a free printable checklist to build against.
What comes back to you
Ask the sub for a page back, not a paragraph: which pages were finished, who was absent, and who needed help with what. A form with those headings gets you what matters for your first day back.
If you want it built already
The 1st Grade Math Sub Plans packet is 37 pages: five days of review plus a spare day, covering place value, addition, subtraction, number patterns, word problems, telling time and mixed review. Each of the five days is a warm up, two main pages and an early finisher. It includes a minute-by-minute note for the sub, a 30-row roster, What Happened Today pages, a whiteboard plan for when the sub cannot print, and answer keys for every page. It is $6.95.
The 1st Grade Reading Sub Plans packet follows the plan in this post: six original passages of 114 to 138 words (five days plus a spare), fiction and nonfiction alternating, each with five three-choice questions, a vocabulary and grammar page and a draw-and-write page, in a 25-minute block that opens with the sub reading the passage aloud. Every comprehension answer in the key names the paragraph that proves it. It is 35 pages and $6.95.
If you teach a 1st and 2nd grade combination class, the Math Sub Plans Grades 1 2 BUNDLE holds a week of math for each grade, 73 pages, for $9.95.
The whole line is on the math sub plans page and the reading sub plans page.
Whichever way you build it, write the going-home list tonight. A worksheet problem can wait for your return. That list cannot.
Frequently asked questions
Are there free 1st grade sub plans?
This store has no free 1st grade sub plans. The one free sub plans item here, the FREE Emergency Sub Binder Starter Kit, is 3rd to 5th grade math, so it is not one to leave for a 1st grade class. Two free things do work in 1st grade: the printable sub folder checklist, and the plan in this post, which you can build from review pages your class already knows: a passage the sub reads aloud first, a draw-and-write page, math directions read aloud, and the going-home list.