Emergency Sub Plan: Twenty Minutes Outside

For twenty minutes with a class you did not plan for. It fills a gap without becoming a free for all.

What you need

**Minutes 0 to 3.** Boundary walk, named out loud. Everyone sits.

**Minutes 3 to 5.** Silence. Listen.

**Minutes 5 to 15.** One task only, chosen from these three depending on the group.

Find five different greens and put them in order from lightest to darkest. Harder than it sounds and it occupies everyone.

Find something that has been eaten by an animal, and work out what did it and where it started.

Find the oldest thing here and be ready to argue for it.

**Minutes 15 to 18.** Two children share. Not everyone. Two.

**Minutes 18 to 20.** Everything back, gather, in.

The session

Nothing at all.

If it rains

Move to a covered area and run the observation parts only. Nothing here requires dry ground except the drawing, and a clipboard solves that.

For the person leaving the plan

Print this, put it in the folder, and write the class name and the boundary at the top. That is all the preparation this needs, and it stays useful for years.

More no prep sessions

See the teacher starting point for the routines that make any outdoor session work.