Meeting the Developmental Needs of School-Aged Children
You have recently made the shift from full-time teacher to substitute in order to focus more on some of your personal goals. You have really been enjoying the freedom that substituting allows, but you miss the planning aspect of having your own classroom. You are excited when you find that the 2nd grade teacher you are filling in for left in such a rush that there is no lesson plan for you.

Since you have a background in teaching, the principal has asked if you would come up with a plan for the entire day. This 2nd grade class has been studying the ocean, so the principal would like you to design a plan that fits in this theme.

The principal reminds you that your plan should include appropriate activities that meet the developmental needs of the 2nd grade students. While you are not required to create extensively detailed plans based on standards, you do need to come up with several activities that will adequately meet and fulfill the following skills:

Physical exercise
Language development
Communication
Listening skills
Independence
Conflict resolution
Self-discipline

You have determined that with lunch, art, and music class, you will need to come up with a minimum of four activities to fill the day. This means that each activity may meet more than one of the above seven skills/requirements.

Again, because you are only filling in for one day, your plans will not need to be as detailed as a regular classroom teacher plan would be. Things like prerequisite skills, pre and post-assessments, standards, and accommodations are not required.

The following is required for each activity that you create:

Activity title
Approximate length of activity
Materials needed for activity
Basic overview/summary of activity and steps involved
How this activity meets one or more of the developmental needs from the aforementioned list
A good place to begin this lab is with some online research into how various activities might align with the listed developmental needs of school-aged children. You might want to explore teacher blogs, childcare websites, educational websites, and more.

Start putting together a list of various activities that meet the developmental needs of school-aged children before spending some time expanding on these activities and adding your own creativity to make them original and suited to your needs.

As long as your list of activities includes all of the information above and appropriately meets all of the developmental needs listed, you can organize and present your plan for the day in whatever way you feel works best: a slideshow, chart, simple word processing document, etc.

Please submit a list of websites and resources that you used in your research along with your plan of activities for your day of subbing in 2nd grade.