It’s inevitable! You will become ill at some point during the school year. Now, whether you choose to take care of yourself and stay home or you try to make it through the day teaching may be a tough decision. I know you know that toughing it out and exposing your students and co-workers to whatever “bug” you caught is not the wisest decision, but still, we teachers do it anyway.

Once you’ve made your decision to go to school or call in a substitute, the pressure to adjust or create sub plans hits. Ugh! In some subject areas, it may be necessary to adjust or rewrite your daily lesson plans for a substitute, but NOT when it comes to Shurley English. As long as the teacher follows the step-by-step lesson plan designated in the teacher’s manual, there should be no reason why your scheduled Shurley English lesson should be skipped.

If you’ve decided to tough it out instead of staying home, here are some tips to help get you through your Shurley English lesson:

A. If you have access to SEDA (Shurley English Digital Assistant), PRESS PLAY, and we’ll teach the lesson for you!

B. Empower a trusted student to lead the Jingles, Question & Answer Flow, and other appropriate parts of the lesson to help you.

C. Do your best to keep going in the lesson; it’s okay if you have to reteach the lesson when you feel better.

D. WRITE! If you realize that you really should’ve stayed home and can’t even continue the lesson, use a writing prompt from a previous lesson to have your students work on during the class period. Here’s the catch, it’s important to allow your students to work through the entire writing process. Students can work independently on their writing assignment and you can provide assistance, as needed. (Remember, this is not just busy-work! Allowing students opportunities to write is always time well spent.)

Teaching while feeling ill is no fun, so take care of YOU…so you can take care of your students!