She suggests, "I just love this story. Great life lesson: It's fun to be different! This is great for a substitute lesson plan: just make some elephant tracers, and have students add a grid and lots of color!"
This lesson would use the most simple materials: crayon and paper. The blog writer used elephant shaped templates too. Kids love tracing so this would work nicely as a sub lesson. Plus, if you have the book Elmer, that is a great introduction to the lesson.
Here's a sweet and easy kindergarten lesson that a sub could easily do. The kindergarten teacher has given a good tutorial for the lesson at her blog, Fairy Dust Teaching. It's based on the book That Pesky Rat. Cityscape Lesson
Here are other blog posts with kindergarten cities using simple cut shapes.
When my coworker retired, she left behind some very nice sub kits. In the packet for each lesson was not only the plan and sample, but selected samples of materials needed.
Here's what the packet looks like for this kindergarten and first-grade lesson.
Here are the plans written in multiple ways.
This is the template for the tee shirt. She had a set of templates in the packet.
Here she shows the sub how to fold the paper for the shirt.
This lesson idea is from "Ms. Brown's Art Class." I think it could be adapted for kindergarten art sub plans up to fifth-grade ones.
Ms. Brown uses block tempera in her classroom. If I had a sub, I might use those same plans or either draw with Sharpie and then fill in with marker or crayon. She has nice instructions on her page. She also uses the book, "The Dot." (Thanks for all the lesson plans on your blog, Ms. Brown!)
I’m not sure why it is, but kids love drawing snakes. Here’s a lesson where they draw one and then add a variety of patterns and doodles.
You could do this with kindergarten but with older kids as well.
This is from the blog "Got Art / Teaching Art to Young Artists." Mrs. Matott said she left this with first and second grades as a sub lesson before and it was successful.
Here’s a similar take on that. This is another blog post about spirals and another pattern snake.
She gives credit where she first saw the idea. Katie says: "If you are on Artsonia, the lesson was posted by Linda Welling from Cedar Creek Elementary School."
Here's a post from Guilford County School's Art Educator's Blog. Caitlin Fisher shared some handouts that she leaves for subs. I've shown one here, but there are more on that site.
If you're interested in a free worksheet, here's a free one at my TPT shop. This link takes you to a writeup about it on this blog: Circle Worksheets. That post also leads you to some other free circle worksheets you might like.
Here's another one I wrote about on my blog: Imagination Workout. There are 11 simple lines drawn on a grid. The challenge is to create something based on those lines. Check out that blog post to see the example and find the link to the original blog post. Only simple materials are required. The blogger also posts a free worksheet a week!