What to do when a student is absent for a lab

You set up an elaborate lab for students to investigate solubility.  Unfortunately you have one student home sick and another in the nurse’s office.

With only so many hours in the day and only so many materials on a campus, there’s a good chance that those two students will have to skip the lab.  When they feel better and return to class they still need to know about solubility so they can continue through your properties of matter unit.  What can you do?

First of all, keep a page of each of the science mini-charts on hand!  These are cards formatted 4 to a page with the basic information students need from a missed lesson.

While the card cannot replace instruction and hands-on experiences,  students can still get the “big idea” from the lesson they missed in a short period of time.

After gluing the card in their notebook and reviewing the information, the absent student completes Output by responding to the card with a drawing, writing, or other reflection choice.

Here are four additional ideas to help an absent student get caught up AND give other students an opportunity to review.

1. A teammate explains the investigation or lab and the results.
2. A class member takes photos of the activity and quickly reviews them with the class the following day.
3. A couple of students share their output from the activity on a document camera.
4. A teammate helps the absent student through a modified version of the lab.  For example, if students determined the volume of 5 irregularly shaped objects, the absent student could just find the volume of just one or two objects.

Are you looking for Science Mini-Charts?  Find them in my TpT Store.  

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