No matter how thoroughly you craft your lesson plan, there will come a day when you find yourself with extra time at the end of class. Rather than waste valuable learning time, come equipped with activities to engage your students. Not every activity will be a good fit for every school you substitute at, so be sure to check with the administration if you’re unsure.

Read on for creative projects, movement based activities, as well as writing and thought experiments for all your high school needs!

Write a letter to a local, national, or world leader

In this activity, ask students to write a letter to an elected official or other leader and persuade them on a matter of policy. The letter can be imaginary or something the students will actually send. This is an exercise in persuasive writing intended to influence the reader. Ask them to support their reasoning with concrete evidence and logic.

Pair up and quiz each other

Students can use review questions provided in their textbooks, by their teacher, or that they come up with on their own. This is a great activity for early-finishers, and can be treated as part of the overall lesson.

Play the ‘ABC Game’

In this game, you divide the class into teams. Name a topic, such as “animals” or “the Great Depression” and have teams take turns naming things that fit into the topic, going through the alphabet. For example, they might say, “aardvark, badger, cougar…” or “Agricultural Adjustment Act, Black Tuesday, Calvin Coolidge…”

Create review crosswords

Hand out graph paper. Have students create a crossword puzzle for their classmates using words from the chapter they’re studying.

Write a letter to their future selves

Another spin on letter-writing is to ask students to address their future selves. Pick an age — 10 or so years in the future — and ask them to write to them as they would a friend or mentor. They can ask questions, imagine what their life is like, and share their dreams for the future. This is an exercise in descriptive and expository writing. Students will get excited about the personal nature of the assignment.

Write a chain story using vocabulary words

Divide the class into groups of five or six. Ask each group to write a paragraph-long story incorporating lesson-specific words or vocabulary words. Assign each student one word and have them go around in a circle adding a sentence at a time. Each sentence should include one vocabulary work.

To make this activity even more fun, use another blank sheet to cover up everything in the story except the preceding line. The stories will turn out a bit ridiculous, amusing students as they learn their vocab words.

Write a poem copying meter

Learning about the rhythm and meter of poetry has many benefits for students. For the youngest, it’s a way to understand rhyming and counting. For older students, it links music, math, and language. Help your students understand the meter of a poem and ask them to recreate it in their own poem. Iambic pentameter is a good sing-songy choice. (It’s recognizable in Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and many other poems.)

Free write

This one’s simple and bound to get students engaged. Tell students their task is to put pen to paper and write about anything on their minds. The only requirement is to keep writing for a certain amount of time. Set a timer, then ask students to reflect on the writing process. Did the flow get easier or harder? Did they get stuck anywhere? Give them an option to share their writing with the class.

Design a dream home

Most students enjoy envisioning their futures. Ask them to sketch the floorplan of their dream house; graph paper, if available, is great! When they’re finished, ask if they’d like to share why they chose certain features. A student might have a room for the many dogs they hope to own, or they might put in a basketball court. This helps you get to know them and lets them share their passions. 

Practice mindfulness

Lead your students in a mindfulness activity. Mindfulness has been shown to mitigate bullying, help students with ADHD focus, and improve overall social skills. In the classroom, mindfulness can be as simple as breathing exercises. Another idea is to take students around the room on a “Safari” and ask them to be present to sights and sounds. Or use an app like Calm or Headspace to guide them in a longer meditation session.

Conduct interviews

Pair students up and give them an opportunity to interview one another for three or four minutes. You might give them a specific topic to discuss — a hobby, pet, or a family member. Then, go around the room and have the interviewers “report” on their subjects to the class.

Improvise

Improv gives students the opportunity to anticipate reactions and learn how to go with the flow and work collaboratively. It’s also a practical game for nearly all ages! See this list of 13 Fun Improv Games for ideas about how to get started.

Ask for advice

Students in grades 7-12 are developing strong opinions and are often excited to share them. At the beginning of the period, share a scenario, and write a question on the board in front of the class, soliciting advice. Those who finish early can write up a list of suggestions for you. Example questions can come from real life: “I haven’t had a chance to listen to new music lately. If you finish early, will you make a list of your favorite musicians? What do you love about their music?”

Color

While you may think an activity like this is appropriate for only younger students, coloring can be a relaxing and meditative activity for all ages. Make a few copies of coloring pages and bring them in for students who, for instance, finish a test early.

Long-term subs

Hold a class-wide review session

Divide the class into teams. Come up with questions off the top of your head or consult the teacher’s edition of their textbooks.

Play ‘Celebrity’

Traditionally, Celebrity is a charades-like guessing game where participants guess celebrities submitted by the players. You can adapt it for the classroom by having students guess historical figures or characters from literature.

In the first round, students give clues to their teammates using any words besides the famous person’s name. In the second round, the student acting out the famous person can use only two words. And in the final round, the student can only silently act out the famous person to try to get their team to guess correctly.

Write a learning reflection about the day’s lessons

Brainstorm a few reflective questions to get students thinking about what they’ve learned during the class period. This will help them review the material and start to think more critically about it. Self-reflective questions also help. These include asking them to write about what they struggled with or what made them curious. Always treat learning reflections as part of the lesson, not as an addendum, to encourage students to do their best work.

Tell them a story

Come prepared with a couple of stories about your life. Have them choose: do they want to hear about how you worked at a tech start-up for a couple of years or what happened when you got lost in Costa Rica? Students will enjoy getting to know you, and they’ll learn a little about the world outside the classroom, too!

Make them laugh

When the school and administrators know you well enough to trust you, don’t be afraid to add a little whimsy to the day. Whether you read aloud from a funny David Sedaris essay or play a brief audio clip from a funny (and clean!) stand-up comedian like Brian Regan or Jim Gaffigan, nothing will endear you to high school students more than letting them laugh for a few minutes at the end of class.

These activities offer a mix of creativity, collaboration, and educational value, making them suitable for various classroom settings and age groups.