What To Do When Your Class Is Absent?

Today I was stressing about trying to fit it all in this week, then the bell rang.  I opened my door to a few kids waiting patiently.  As the Tardy bell rang and I started counting heads, I knew it was going to be a different kind of day.  I have 20 kids on my roster, but 6 were out sick.  My entire RTI/ELD group was absent.  No small focus groups for them today.  So the big question, do I just keep moving along with my plans, or teach by the seat of my pants.  I chose option two.  I did introduce our letter of the week and continue on with our morning calendar notebooks, but that was it.  The rest was all fun and games with a lot of learning.

I was able to listen to kids read one-on-one; I rarely get the opportunity to let them read an entire story to me. We worked in small groups with segmenting and blending.  We even broke out the white boards to segment and write C-V-C words.  I also brought out some new centers I wanted to introduce to the class. I partnered up the kids and had them work together.  We then exchanged centers and worked some more.  Once the other kids come back, they will at least have a partner who knows how to use the centers. We practiced the Christmas Carols for our school-wide sing-along on Friday. We even had time to use the fabulous Centers  It's a Small World from Mrs. Wills Kindergarten

I don't think all of my kids will be back tomorrow, but at least my assistant will be.  I need to get cracking on those parent gifts.  What do you do when a third of your kids are absent?