Substitutes

I have a confession.  I would rather do a full week of bus duty then have to plan for a sub.  However, I am sitting here thinking about this because my oldest child had a stomach bug last night, so here I am.  Worrying about what is going on in my classroom, and feeling guilty about thinking about what is going on at school.  (For the record, my eldest is feeling better, just tired from the long night).

Since I hate to be absent, I feel like I am always scrambling to prepare. For example:  I was at school this morning by 6:40 to get ready.  My husband thinks that is crazy. It probably is.  But, I just can't come up with things on the fly...you know?  And what I might have planned for me to do, might not work with a sub.

So my question is this.  How do you prepare for a sub?  Do you have a generic sub folder loaded down with stuff for the kids to do?  I find that I write out step-by-step lesson plans (today the plans that I left were seven pages long!)  HELP!

I hope this makes some sense....I'm working on little sleep here!

Have a great day!