Sick Students and Germs Galore

I'm not sure if any of you have had this problem lately at school but the kids are dropping like flies from the flu this year. On top of the flu there is a nasty cold going around at one of the schools that I work at and it is effecting the kids and the teachers. I'm just crossing my fingers that I don't get sick.

One thing that I swear by is Bath & Body Works' spray hand sanitizer. I love using the pump hand sanitizer too but it just dries out my hands so badly. I recently found this beauty during their semi-annual sale. I picked mine up for $3 - which I now view as a steal after using it for a few weeks as it seems to last much longer than traditional hand sanitizer. One other thing I like about it is that it dries so quickly - much faster than the gel type. You can get yours by clicking on the image below!

I often find it difficult to find a organized and nice way to send home work to a sick student. I saw so many students out this week that I decided I must come up with a solution to this problem. This led to my creation of the sick letter. 

             

Now, I do not send home the second page for students that have only been out for a day. This page is for the students that have been out with the flu for over a week. I find that it helps both me and the families to have dates to strive for when completing back work. I also don't want the student to fall too far behind because the work then becomes busy work and the practice isn't worth while. I also send this second page home when a student is going to be away for an extended period of time. Here is what that page looks like:

And last but not least - to keep myself sane and organized - a checklist to keep track of all my sick and vacationing students and their work. 

I use this checklist with every type of absence- so some columns will be listed with N/A if a student was only absent for one day. Here is an example of a few of the columns filled in. (I normally hand write on my checklist - I have multiples printed out and placed into a folder.)

This keeps me accountable for sending work home and then keeps me up to date as it comes back in. I add in the date that the work is due and then check it off when the students hand it in. As a way to congratulate the students for getting all their work done they always get a competition card when it has all been handed in. So as soon as I see a check next to all work due I will send home a competition card that looks like this. 

                          

The students feel very successful when they receive this card and it makes them proud of all the work they did. It also allows the parents to see that all that make up work is competed and they are back to their normal amount of homework.

If you are interested this packet is available on Teachers Pay Teachers for $1.50! Head on over to my store to check it out.

How do you deal with make-up work? Let us know down in the comments! 

Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful weekend.