Psychology Emergency Sub Plans - 5 Days No Prep Print and Go Worksheets

Five full days of substitute-ready psychology in one no-prep download, built for the problem that makes an elective absence hard: psychology is rarely the covering teacher's subject, and there is usually no second psychology teacher in the building to ask. Nothing here asks them to teach it. Each day is an original nonfiction reading with every answer on the handout, followed by a page that checks its own answers, and a run sheet at the front tells the substitute exactly what to hand out. The five days run the introductory course in order, from what makes psychology a science through to how we explain each other's behavior, so this is a week of coursework rather than a folder of activities. You come back to a complete set of answer keys and a class that kept working.

WHAT'S INCLUDED

- Sub & Teacher Notes run sheet (what to hand out each day, what to print, and why the substitute does not need to grade anything)

- 5 days of student work, two pages per day (68 questions total)

- 5 original nonfiction readings written for this packet, one per day

- 5 complete answer keys, one per day

- Single 17-page PDF: run sheet and student pages first (pages 1-11), an "Answer Keys" divider on page 12, then the keys (pages 13-17) -- print pages 1-11 to hand out the whole week without printing the keys

- PDF bookmarks for one-click navigation by day

- US Letter, low-ink, two-sided printable

WHY A SUBSTITUTE CAN ACTUALLY RUN THIS

- Every question is answered by the reading on the same handout, so a stuck student re-reads the passage instead of asking the sub a subject question

- Every second page checks itself -- answers pair off, spell out a phrase, or fall into a sequence, so a wrong answer is caught by the student, not adjudicated by the sub

- Every day has an "if you finish early" challenge, so nobody runs out of work

- No device, textbook, login, or internet needed

THE 5 DAYS

1. What Psychology Is -- the major perspectives, research methods, correlation versus causation, and research ethics (14 questions, answer match)

2. Biological Bases of Behavior -- the neuron and the synapse, the major brain regions, sleep stages, and why lost sleep costs what it does (14 questions, word decoder)

3. Sensation, Perception, and Learning -- thresholds and adaptation, top-down processing, classical and operant conditioning, and reinforcement schedules (12 questions, sequence path)

4. Memory, Cognition, and Intelligence -- encoding and forgetting, reconstructive memory, heuristics and bias, and what an intelligence test can claim (14 questions, answer match)

5. Development, Personality, and Social Psychology -- Piaget and attachment, the major personality theories, conformity and obedience, and how we explain behavior (14 questions, word decoder)

Each day stands alone, so they can run in any order or be pulled one at a time.

PERFECT FOR

- Emergency and planned substitute days in Psychology (grades 9-12)

- Planned absences, professional development days, and testing weeks when you are pulled to proctor

- Review before a test, the first week of school, or the day before a break

- Homeschool families working through Psychology

STANDARDS TOUCHED

CCSS ELA/Literacy: RST.9-10.1, RST.9-10.2 and RST.9-10.4 on the readings and questions, and RI.9-10.8 on the argument-evaluation items. Each is earned by a recurring slot rather than a one-off: RST.9-10.1 by the three literal questions each day, RST.9-10.2 by the central-claim question on Days 1, 3 and 5, RST.9-10.4 by the daily vocabulary-in-context question, and RI.9-10.8 by the four items that ask whether a stated conclusion is actually supported by the evidence given — a causal claim drawn from a correlation on Day 1, a witness's confidence on Day 4, and two extension prompts that ask what evidence would settle the question. The grades 11-12 band is NOT claimed: these passages are written at the 9-10 complexity level because an introductory psychology course is a first exposure at any grade, and RST.11-12.1 additionally requires attending to gaps and inconsistencies in the text, which nothing here asks for. RST.9-10.3 is not claimed — no day carries a multistep procedure or experiment to follow. RST.9-10.7 is not claimed either: no day carries a chart, graph or data table. The RST strand is used rather than the parallel RH history/social-studies codes because the readings are about scientific findings and methods, not about history, even though the marketplace pickers file psychology under Social Studies. The APA National Standards for High School Psychology are deliberately NOT cited by code. The content statements are given in plain language instead — scientific attitude and research methods, biological bases of behavior, sensation and perception, learning, memory and cognition, lifespan development, personality, and social psychology — because a code the content does not carry is worse than a code left off.

FROM RESPONSE RESOURCES

More no-prep worksheets and sub plans are available from Response Resources -- same practical, ready-to-print format.

LEAVE A RATING

A quick rating where you bought it earns you credits toward future purchases and helps other teachers find it. Questions or a correction? Reach out at contact@responseresources.studio.

---

Copyright (c) Response Resources. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use: This document is for personal use only and may only be used by the original purchaser. Copying for more than one teacher, classroom, department, school, or school district is prohibited. Additional licenses can be purchased at a discount for others to use in your department. This entire document, or any parts within, may not be reproduced or displayed for public viewing. You may NOT electronically post this product online including to teacher blogs, classroom websites, or school networks. Failure to comply is a copyright infringement and a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).