Absent Crate: An easy way to manage work when students are absent

“What did I miss when I was gone?”

That’s a common question heard daily by most teachers. When you have close to 150 students and 5 to 20 are absent on any given day, it’s hard to keep track of which students have missed certain lessons. That’s why I started an Absent Crate this year to put the burden of looking for missing work on students.

As I was searching for a new absent work system, I saw multiple versions of an Absent Crate on Pinterest. The concept spurred me into thinking how I could make this work most effectively in my own classroom. Here is my version:

• The crate contains 31 hanging file folders numbered from 1 to 31 to represent all of the possible dates in a month.

• Within each hanging folder are two regular file folders: One for 7^th grade and one for 8^th grade. If you teach more than one class, you would need a folder for each course. Any handouts given out each day are placed in the appropriate folder within the hanging file folder for that date.

• In the front of the hanging file folder is a sheet where I document absent students for each grade level and describe the lesson and list any handouts for the day. The top of the sheet is for one grade level and the bottom is for the other. Students can look at the sheet to see what the lesson was for the day, and then they know which handouts to grab from the file folder for their grade level. I added the place to record absent students because they sometimes forget the exact dates they were gone, so they can double check before they grab the wrong materials.

• I keep the Absent Sheets on a clipboard at my desk. Each day I record the date at the top and describe lessons for that day. Each class period I record the names of absent students on the sheet as well. At the end of the day, I place the sheet in the front of the appropriate hanging folder.

This system is organized, easy, and requires minimal effort on my part. At the end of each month, I remove all Absent Sheets and handouts from the folders and clip them together. Right now I place them in my filing cabinet in case I need to access them later.

 

If you have a system that works for you, please share!