Week Long Sub Plans: How to Plan Five Days for a Substitute (and the No Prep Kits That Do It for You)

A sick day is one thing. A week is another. Emergency sub plans for a single day are everywhere, but when you are out for five days in a row, one worksheet packet runs dry by Tuesday and the sub is improvising by Wednesday. This is how I plan week long sub plans that a substitute can run without me, and the no prep kits I built so I never have to do it at 6 a.m. again.

Why week long sub plans are a different problem

Emergency sub plans for one day can be almost anything: a video with questions, a review packet, a game. Nobody minds a filler day. A week long absence is different in three ways.

The sub needs a plan, not a pile. Five days of loose activities means the sub decides what happens when, and the class notices. A week long sub plan has an order: Monday is this, Tuesday is that, with page numbers.
The work has to be real. Five days of word searches is a wasted week and parents hear about it. Each day needs a lesson the sub can hand out cold, with a worked example on the page so nobody has to teach it.
Behavior drifts. By Thursday a class with a sub is loud. The plan needs a reward at the end of each day and a calm block for the moments a room needs to settle.

How I plan a full week for a substitute

I use the same shape every time. It works whether the absence is planned (a conference, jury duty, a surgery) or a scramble.

1. A filled-in week plan on page one

Not a blank schedule. A table, Monday to Friday, with the set for each slot and the page it starts on. The sub opens the binder, sees the day, and goes. I include a blank schedule too, but the filled-in one is what gets used.

2. One subject set per day, with the lesson on the page

Each day gets a set the sub can run in every period: a one-page lesson with worked examples, a practice page, and a challenge that stretches it to a block period. The sub needs no subject knowledge because the page teaches and the key checks. That is the whole trick behind no prep sub plans: the explaining is printed.

3. A calm block for early finishers and loud moments

A word search, a sudoku, a maze, a secret code, plus a reset sheet. The sub can hand one out to a single early finisher or to the whole room when it gets noisy. Every puzzle has a key.

4. A team task for the block periods

One 40 minute group task per day: a ranking challenge, a plan within a budget, a build with two sheets of paper, a council where each role card holds part of the answer, a structured debate. Groups of four, a clear end product, and the reasoning in the key so the sub can judge it.

5. A game for the last 15 minutes, if earned

Whiteboard Jeopardy, paper Password, Class Feud, Classroom Millionaire, Mystery Box. Played from a script, no projector. The game is the reward, and the sub is told to skip it on a day the class has not earned it. That one line does more for behavior than anything else in the binder.

6. The sub binder pages

A note to the substitute, a class list with dismissal notes, a “how it went” sheet, and a Monday opener so the sub and the class meet properly. Same as any emergency sub folder, but for a week they matter more.

The kits I built so the week is planned for you

I got tired of assembling that shape every time, so I made it once per subject and per grade band. Each kit is a print and go binder, 60 to 90 pages, planned Monday to Friday, with answer keys for everything. The sub needs no subject knowledge, no login, and no projector.

Middle school sub plans, one kit per subject

For grades 6 to 8, where the teacher who is out teaches one subject all day. The games, the team tasks and the puzzles are all about that subject, so a math sub week is math from bell to bell.

Middle School Math Sub Plans: ratios, integers, fractions, area and perimeter, data
Middle School ELA Sub Plans: reading passages and writing lessons, ten sets
Middle School Science Sub Plans: density, states of matter, food webs, forces, the water cycle
Middle School Social Studies Sub Plans: maps, timelines, branches of government, ancient civilizations, economics
Middle School Art Sub Plans: pencil and paper only, no art room needed
Middle School PE and Health Sub Plans: PE sub plans that work in a classroom
Middle School Advisory Sub Plans: goal setting, study skills, digital citizenship
Middle School Spanish Sub Plans: Spanish 1, run by a sub with no Spanish

All eight together are the Middle School Sub Plans Bundle, 29% off, for a department sub tub.

High school sub plans, one kit per subject

Same idea for grades 9 to 12, with content at that level: algebra and geometry, rhetoric and essay planning, cells and chemical reactions, the Constitution and personal finance, and so on.

Or the High School Sub Plans Bundle with all eight.

Elementary: every subject in one binder

In a self-contained class the sub teaches everything, so these two kits hold a week of math, reading, writing, science and social studies, in the order the day runs, with the games and calm blocks built in.

Week Long Sub Plans for Grades 3 to 5, 140 pages
Week Long Sub Plans for Kindergarten to 2nd Grade, 101 pages, with a “say this” script on every page because the sub reads everything aloud

Only out for a day?

Then a week kit is more than you need. My one-day emergency substitute binders (preschool, elementary, middle school and high school) hold seven no prep activities each, and the Calm Classroom Games Kit is the quiet work for any sub day. I wrote up what goes in a sub kit if you want to build your own.

The week long sub plans checklist

A filled-in Monday to Friday plan with page numbers
One real lesson per day, with the worked example printed on the page
Practice and a challenge for each lesson, with answer keys
A calm block: puzzles and a reset sheet, more copies than you think
One team task per day for block periods
A game for the last 15 minutes, earned, played from a script
A note to the sub, class list, dismissal notes, and a “how it went” sheet
A blank schedule in case the sub or the school needs a different order

Build it once, keep it printed in a sub tub, and the week you cannot be there runs the way you would have run it.