Emergency sub plans for 3rd grade usually have to cover two blocks, math and reading, and each block needs the same four things: review work the class can start without a lesson, a minute-by-minute script the sub can follow, answer keys, and a page where the sub writes down what happened. Add a whiteboard backup for the morning the copier is down, and a plan for an absence that runs past a week.
This post is the 3rd grade version, block by block. For the general case, What Good Math Sub Plans Actually Contain covers the five parts any math sub plan needs, and the math sub plans page has the packets for every grade.
Why 3rd grade needs its own plan
Two things make 3rd grade different.
First, much of the math is new this year: multiplication and division facts, fractions, area. In the fall a class may have only just met multiplication and not met fractions at all. A substitute cannot tell a student who never learned something from one who would rather not do it, so sub work has to match where your class is today, not where the standards say it will be in June.
Second, reading levels in 3rd grade still spread wide. Some students read a full-page passage on their own with ease; others are still working through it line by line. A reading plan that assumes everyone can read the passage alone loses part of the room in the first ten minutes.
The math block
Our 3rd grade math sub plans run a 45-minute block the same way every day. The Note for the Substitute on page 2 lays it out:
- Minutes 0 to 5: the Warm Up page. Students start on their own.
- 5 to 20: Main page A. Anyone who finishes moves straight to Main B.
- 20 to 35: Main page B.
- 35 to 40: the Early Finisher page for anyone who is done. Everyone else keeps working.
- 40 to 45: collect the pages. The sub fills in What Happened Today while the class packs up.
The same four kinds of page come in the same order every day, so the class learns the routine once.
The five days cover place value, addition and subtraction, multiplication, fractions, division, word problems, and a mixed review day, with a Morning Work page as each day’s Early Finisher. That is 373 problems on 36 pages, and every page is keyed at the back.
Now the 3rd grade part. Before you file the packet, read it against your pacing. Day 3 is fractions and division, and Day 2 has a full multiplication page. If your class has not started fractions, pull Day 3 and have the sub use the Day 6 spare pages (mixed review, place value, morning work) instead. Multiplication and division facts also appear on the Morning Work and mixed review pages, so if you are building the folder in the first weeks of school, before facts are taught, hold the packet until they have been.
The script also gives the sub words for a stuck student: “Have a go at the next one and come back to it,” and, if they are still stuck at the end, “Circle it and leave it blank. Your teacher will look at it.” The child who freezes has a way out, and I get a circled problem instead of a guess, which tells me more.
The reading block
The 3rd grade reading sub plans follow the same 45 minutes with a passage at the center. Each day is one original passage of 259 to 299 words, fiction and nonfiction alternating, and three pages of work on it:
- Minutes 0 to 10: students read the passage twice on their own.
- 10 to 25: eight comprehension questions, passage beside them.
- 25 to 35: a vocabulary and grammar page built from the passage.
- 35 to 45: a short writing response, then collect all four pages.
The sub note handles the reading spread directly: if several students cannot read the passage alone, the sub reads it aloud once to the whole class before the questions. The note puts that at four minutes.
The keys are what let a stranger run this block. Every comprehension answer names the paragraph that proves it. When two students disagree about how Maya felt when she could not find her book in “The Missing Library Book,” the sub does not have to rule. She reads paragraph 2 aloud and the passage settles it.
When the printer is down
Page 7 of each packet is for the morning the copier is jammed or the copies were never run: twenty minutes of math and twenty-five minutes of reading and language, run from a whiteboard with nothing else.
The math page includes “My Answer Is.” The sub says, “My answer is 48. What could the question have been?” and every correct question counts, so it works at every level in the room at once. The reading page includes a Story Chain, a Word of the Day, and Retell in Five. Keep a copy of both pages at the front of the folder where the sub will see them first.
When one day becomes two weeks
Surgery, a family emergency, or a long flu can keep you out well past the day a sub folder is usually built for.
Both packets carry a sixth day. In math, Day 6 is spare pages for a second day out. In reading, Day 6 is a spare passage, “What Makes a Rainbow,” with its full set of questions, vocabulary, and writing. One packet of each covers six school days.
Past that, math has a second week. 3rd Grade Math Sub Plans Week 2 uses the same 45-minute routine and the same front pages, and none of its problems appears in Week 1, so the same class can work through both without meeting a repeat. It is 36 pages and 325 problems. Together, the two weeks give ten full days of math plus two spare days.
Week 2 also adds geometry and measurement, which Week 1 does not cover: perimeter and area of rectangles and naming polygons. Run the pacing check again here. Day 2 is fractions, and geometry pages fall on Days 1 and 4 and on the Day 6 spare. Area and perimeter often come later in the 3rd grade year, so if your class has not reached them, the Day 6 spare is not a clean swap. Pull the geometry pages and have the sub use the page 7 whiteboard routine in their place.
Reading past the sixth day needs no new pages. The Story Chain restarts with any new first sentence, and the page supplies two more. The early-finisher tasks in the sub note also work as a whole-class task on a passage the class has already read: write a different ending to one of the stories, or underline the one sentence that matters most and write why.
What it costs
The math and reading packets are $6.95 each. The 3rd grade sub plans bundle has both, 71 pages, for $9.95 against $13.90 bought separately. Week 2 is $6.95 on its own.
Set it up once, this month
- Print both packets and read the math days against your pacing. Swap in spare pages where the class is not there yet.
- Write your class list on the roster page once. It has 30 numbered rows and a column for each of the five days.
- Put both whiteboard pages at the front of the folder.
- Add a few lines only you can write: who needs the multiplication chart, who should not sit together, who leaves for a pull-out and when. Medical needs, allergies, medication, and pickup or custody arrangements are not for a note in the folder: point the sub to the office and your school’s procedures for those. The substitute binder checklist walks the rest of the folder in the order a sub will reach for it.
When you are back, read the What Happened Today pages first. They tell you which pages were finished, who was absent, and who needed help with what, so the first morning back starts where the sub left off. Teaching a 3/4 combination class? The 4th grade version covers which skills are safe to leave there.
Frequently asked questions
Are there free 3rd grade sub plans?
In part. The FREE Emergency Sub Binder Starter Kit is 14 pages: a sub note template, a checklist, and math pages for 3rd to 5th grade. It is math only and it is not a full week, so it is a start on the folder, not the math and reading blocks described above. Those are the paid packets, $6.95 each.