It’s hard enough making sub plans in a special education classroom, so the thought of planning for a whole maternity leave – especially if you are planning on using your maximum leave benefits is pretty daunting.  It’s a LONG TIME to plan for, and with each student having different IEP goals and unique needs, that’s a lot of differentiation to plan for an materials to prep.

To top it off, if your pregnancy has gone like mine – nausea and congestion the entire pregnancy, the last thing you want to do is plan lessons a few months ahead of time.  The pregnancy brain and exhaustion is real.  It’s hard enough getting by, day by day. So I’m going to share with you how I organized my plans in hopes that it helps at least one soon-to-be mama out there stress a little less.

Things To Consider Before You Plan

Before you dive into planning, make sure to consider a few things first. You don’t want to end up over-planning and wasting your time prepping materials that are not going to end up being used.

• Are you coming back to the same class/students when you return? – If you are in a location where you get a maternity leave upwards of a year or more, do you even have to leave maternity leave plans? Is the sub going to just step in and run the class as their own basically? Then stop reading here – you probably don’t need to prep maternity leave plans 😉
• Have a routine (eg. morning routine) and schedule in place before you leave – this will make your planning easier (so that it is seamless for your staff and students to carry on without you).
• Unless your school requires it – don’t stress over writing detailed lesson plans for each day you are out. Odds are – your staff/the sub are not going to carry out each of those lesson plans (to be honest). Instead, focus on IEP goals and just a few core subjects that you can easily prep for (I will go into more detail about this below).
• Include your staff in some of the planning process – at the least, go over the general plans with them before you leave and don’t just leave the plans for your sub to figure out. Your staff are going to be a huge key in helping your class continue to run as smooth as it has.

Sub Binder

First, I created a summary checklist on the front of the binder for the sub.  Sorry I don’t have a free download for you because it’s going to look different for each of us what is on your summary, but it took me just a few minutes to create on a Word document using the checklist bullet points.  Here are the areas I jotted down:.

• Daily (eg. Submit attendance)
• Each week (eg. Email parents)
• As needed (eg. Make copies of IEP goal worksheets)
• At the beginning of the month (eg. Send home donation letter)
• At the end of each month (eg. Send home newsletter)
• Important dates (eg. Progress reports due by)

On the inside of the binder:

• Student emergency contact information
• Parent emails/notes
• IEP data collection instructions
• Incident/Behavior report forms
• Progress report instructions/checklists (If your sub will be in charge of writing progress notes)
• Any other important instructions specific to your class/program (eg. Off Campus Job contacts)

These are things that I’ve organized into other binders that I have available on hand for myself or my staff year round – but depending on how you like to organize, maybe you might include it in your sub binder:

• Class schedule / Service Schedules / Off Campus Job schedules
• Individual student schedules
• IEP at a glance for each student
• Behavior plans
• Annual/Triennial dates (if your sub is responsible for fulfilling these duties)

Have you told your class yet? Or even if you have – have you frontloaded your students with the information in a way that they can understand? This comes with visuals to help show students when to expect you to be out along with some fun “baby shower” games you can play with them.

Prepping Printables

Next, I’m gonna show you how I organized some of the lessons and materials that I’ve left for the sub by creating labels for hanging file folders to be placed in a desktop file crate. I want everything organized and easy to find for the sub and my staff so that they don’t have to worry too much. I also want these to be out in the open – even though I have a filing cabinet in my desk or other areas that are hidden. You know that saying “out of sight out of mind”? I don’t want exactly that to happen – for the lessons to be hidden or forgotten about. I want them easily accessible by the sub and all of my staff, and clearly marked so there’s no confusion.

I chose to organize by month with folders of the main subjects inside of each hanging folder. I also included a few holidays that I have some fun lessons for. Additionally, I made some labels for materials that might be more of an as-needed basis for copies. As I mentioned above, don’t stress about prepping detailed lesson plans for each day. In these folders, I only printed a few materials for core subjects that I took from a full-year bundle. I essentially didn’t do any prepping other than printing a few sets from the bundles! (The bundles will be linked below under “What are my maternity leave plans?”)

You can download these labels for free here:

Prepping Digital Lessons (the majority of my lessons)

I actually use this setup for my staff and sub for when I am out sick during the regular school year as well. Not only is it great for last-minute plans, but it doesn’t require any downloading or printing for the sub or staff to do. They can just hop on the computer and it is all there ready to go for them with new materials for each day!

This document I have hanging up near my desk you can download for free from me (see below) and has a general overview of our lessons schedule with logins for websites we frequently use such as New 2 You and Boom Cards.

I have a staff/sub computer log-in where I’ve uploaded any frequently used files to the desktop such as our Menu Math visuals and Directed Drawing PowerPoint presentations.

The rest of the magic is on Google Chrome bookmarks bar.  I set up a free Gmail account for my staff, and this allows me to house my morning routine, digital lessons on Kami, and end-of-day routine all in one spot! I organize each part of the day into folders and all you have to do is click on the folder and it will open up all of the saved websites or or pages in tabs.  The best part is that I can change/edit the folders from a remote location.

If you want more details on how to set that up, and to download the sub plans organizer above for FREE, head to this blog post below:

What are my maternity leave plans?

While I’d love to leave you a detailed account of everything I planned – it’s not going to be helpful to you because my class and students are most likely not the same as your class.  That’s the tough part about being a special education teacher is that our plans will differ from teacher to teacher because they have to be tailored to the unique needs and goals of each student.  So here is what I can tell about my plans:

• My main plans are focused on my students’ IEP goals.  Learn more on how I set up IEP Bins to work on my students’ goals daily along with consistent data collection.
• My class is sticking to their usual routines which are jam-packed full of activities that work on a variety of skills. Check out my MORNING ROUTINE HERE, and my END OF DAY ROUTINE HERE to see what activities I do.

• The rest of my lessons are the main life skills subjects – functional math, reading, and writing.  I’ve created full-year bundles that are differentiated to cover the needs of all of my learners in each of these areas.  This is what I’ve prepped and printed out to have ready to go for my staff. Check out some of these bundles below:

Activities Always Available in the Classroom

The rest of the dozens of other important life skills subjects I have covered through my digital activities library, task cards, file folders, and bingo collections. Check out the blog below to learn about the different types of digital activities I use (Boom Cards, Interactive Pdf, Google Slides…etc) and how I use them in class.

I organize each crate by level (eg. Picture to Picture matching, Word to Picture Matching, Sorting…etc) and staff/students can easily pick from these crates during independent work and rotations.

Check out these life skills & vocational file folders, task cards and digital activity bundles:

Some key take-aways I want to reiterate:

• Don’t stress too much and spend too much time over-planning and prepping – just provide a basic structure (routines) and be willing to accept that once you leave it is no longer your worry. Your time with your new babe is going to matter more.
• Have a solid morning and end-of-day routine (and whatever other routines that might be important to your class) in place before you leave – this will take away a majority of the planning you have to do.
• Utilize as many digital activities and full-year bundles as you can – this will be less prepping for you!

Thanks for reading!

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