Quiz Ideas for a Substitute Teacher: Easy Sub Plans

Sub plans fail in a predictable way. The plan assumes the substitute knows your content, your routines and your software, and the substitute knows none of them. By second period the worksheet is finished, the class is loud, and someone has asked three times whether they are "allowed" to be on their phones.

A quiz can be a good anchor for a sub day, but only if it asks very little of the person running the room. This post lays out four plans that work for a substitute who has never seen your class, shows what to prepare before you leave, and is plain about what a sub can and can't do in Kwizzy so you don't find out the hard way at 7:40 a.m.

Start with what a sub can actually run

The first constraint is accounts. Hosting a live game needs a teacher's login, and you should not hand your password to a stranger, so assume a substitute cannot host a live game for you. What a substitute can do, with no login at all, is open a link or type a code.

That leaves two practical mechanisms:

• Solo play of a library quiz. Each student opens the link on their own device and plays at their own pace. It is free and needs no account. The catch is that nothing is reported back to you. The sub can see the room is busy, but you cannot see scores afterward.
• Homework set ahead of time. Before you leave, you set a quiz as homework with a deadline. Students go to the homework page, type the code, enter a nickname and answer in order. Because you created it, you see every nickname's score when you return. The sub just writes the code on the board.

If you need a live, whole-class game, the options are to run it yourself on a day you are present, or to ask another teacher in your building to host it using their own account. Don't plan a sub day around a feature the sub cannot reach.

Plan 1: The code on the board

Set a library quiz as homework with a deadline that falls after the sub day. Leave a note: "Write this code on the board. Students go to the homework page, enter the code and a nickname, and answer at their own pace. They can start as soon as they sit down."

Why this works: the sub's job is to say one sentence and keep the room calm. The quiz does the pacing, and you get a record of who finished. Each homework has its own code and its own list of scores, so if you teach several periods, set one per period (or one for all and ask students to add their period to the nickname). Your plan limits how many homeworks can be open at once, so check the pricing page before you plan five periods.

When it falls short: students type their own nicknames, so you will not see real names unless you ask students to use a first name plus initial. Tell them in the note, and remember that nicknames are filtered for inappropriate words, as described in the nickname filter post. Homework mode needs a device per student, so check beforehand that the room has them.

Plan 2: Solo practice with a paper twist

Choose a library quiz that fits your unit, for example The Solar System for a space unit or US States and Geography for a geography one, and leave the link on the board. Students play on their devices. Because solo play records nothing for you, add a paper step so there is evidence of work: each student writes down the questions they missed on an index card, then uses the retry button to replay only those, and writes one sentence per card about what they learned.

The paper step is the actual assignment. The quiz is the engine that makes the paper step fast. Collect the cards at the end; the sub only has to gather a stack.

When it falls short: it relies on honest self-reporting. For a low-stakes review day that is fine. For anything graded, use Plan 1.

Plan 3: Pairs and a shared device

Not every room has a device for every student. If you have a handful, pair students and give each pair one device. One partner reads the question aloud and both agree before the other taps an answer. After each answer the quiz shows the correct choice, and an explanation if the question has one. The pair then says why in a sentence before moving on.

This turns a quiet screen task into talk, which is what a sub can supervise without knowing the content. A starting point is Word Problems and Reasoning, where talking through the steps is the point.

The thing to avoid: letting one student hold the device and answer for everyone. Tell the sub to swap the device every five questions. A timer on the board is easier for a stranger to enforce than a rule they have to remember.

Plan 4: Quiz-writing day

For older students, flip it. Give each student a topic from the unit and ask them to write five questions of their own on paper, with four options, one right answer and a one-sentence reason it is right. The sub collects them. You read the best ones when you get back, and some can become real questions in a quiz you build.

This needs no devices, no logins and no knowledge from the sub. It works because writing a good wrong answer forces a student to understand the content. Our guide to writing good multiple choice questions can go on the desk as a one-page handout.

Be honest with yourself about the limits. Students who have not learned the material cannot write questions about it, so this fits review and extension more than new content.

What to leave on the desk

A sub plan is only as good as the note. Keep it to one page and put these things on it:

1. The exact link or code, written out. Spell the web address; do not assume someone will find it.
2. What students do when they finish. For example, "play the retry round, then start the second quiz on the list."
3. A backup if the Wi-Fi is down. A paper version of Plan 4 costs nothing to leave.
4. Which students have used the site before and can help others.
5. What you want collected, and where it goes.

Test the link the night before on a device that is not yours, ideally on your school network, so a blocked site doesn't wreck the day. If the school filters the site, tell your IT contact early.

When you want more control on the days you are away

The plans above work with the free account and the free library. If you find yourself setting homework for sub days again and again, the next step is writing your own questions so the quiz matches your unit exactly. Our pricing page explains what the paid plans add, including writing quizzes faster with AI from your own notes.