Epic Math Adventures: 5th Grade Activities for Exciting Learning

Teaching 5th graders is a challenge year round, whether it’s right after a long summer break or any other time of the year. Both students and teachers are adjusting to new routines.

Yet, each day brings an opportunity for fresh starts and exciting ideas to explore, even though it can also appear daunting. From the planning stages to creating engaging activities and making sure your students have a seamless classroom experience can be a real challenge.

But fret not, math teachers, we are going to discuss my top 3 back to school activities that you can implement in your classroom and kick lesson planning out of the window.

Here are the 3 best math activities I use in my classroom with my 5th grade students to make learning super fun and exciting.

1. Solve the Room Activities

If your elementary math students are not excited about math, you must try this math activity once in your class.

Let’s face it. We are maths teachers, and we want our kids to solve maths more and more so they can develop the muscles needed to gain confidence.

Especially during elementary, when students are still nailing the basics, it’s more than ever important to get their foundations solid.

This is the reason why I use Solve the Room activity in my 5th grade math class throughout the year, especially during back to school and just before the winter holidays. This activity makes the tedious task of solving math problems an active and exciting activity.

Solve the Room activity not only creates movement but also excitement for students. You can also use these to test student’s knowledge in an exciting way.

If you want to try one Solve the Room activity for free, I happen to have one in my TPT store

Benefits of using Solve The Room

First of all, you can use them as a center station activity. If you are one of those people who do not like their students to sit around and do their work instead of wanting them to be up and active, then this is the perfect activity to try.

It gets them to wiggle out which ultimately leads them to behave better during the rest of the school time.

From a teacher’s side, you get to see your students having fun with solving math, which is a rare sight to have.

You can use it for practicing any 5th grade math skill, like solving fractions and decimals or order of operation to the volume of a rectangular prism.

You can even use them as exit tickets or assessments to know what skills your students lack understanding of.

How does it work?

First of all, you need to set up the activity. You need questions or flashcards that your students will be working on.

Secondly, you need a recording sheet where they can show their work and write their answers.

After you have set the whole activity, now is the time to set up your room. Just place the question cards at different places inside your classroom and give each student a recording sheet to write their answers.

A recording sheet is just a piece of paper with numbers and boxes already drawn on it to make it easier for your students to record the correct answers to the question.

Students can use the back of the recording sheet to show their work if needed.

Students will move around the room, find the question card, solve the math problem written on the card, and record their answers on the recording sheet. They continue moving from one station to another until all the stations are solved.

So, to set up your own Solve the Room activity, here are the things you need to do:

1. Print the question Flashcards to place in your classroom.
2. Print the recording sheets for each student.
3. Have your students walk around the room solving the questions.
4. Recording the answers while you help them whenever they get stuck on a problem.

Although this activity is very easy to set up, I know it can be frustrating for some. So, if you don’t want to set up the activity yourself, I have a set in my TPT shop that you can purchase for your 5th grade math students.

The set includes addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of both fractions and decimal problems. It even includes multi-digit multiplication, division, and much more. I also have the same set in the seasonal themes if this is what keeps your kids engaged, so you can choose whatever you want for your classroom.

Want to check them out? [Click here to shop 5th grade Solve the Room]

If you use Solve The Room in your classroom, leave a comment about how the whole activity went.

[Click here or the image below to visit Solve The Room in my TPT shop.]

2. Save the Queen – Maze Activity

Now, you might be thinking about what is this Save the Queen maze activity and how it works. So let me explain!

This activity is simply an exciting way I use maze activities inside my classroom. Instead of just letting my kiddos solve problems with maze worksheets, I try to incorporate stories inside them.

Spoiler Alert! Here is how it works:

In the story, the Queen bee goes out into the wild and loses her way back home. Your students must work through the problems to bring her back to her hive.

The activity progresses inside a maze with a number written inside the honeycomb. The numbers represent the task card your student must solve to progress through the maze.

The student solves the problem on the task cards and looks for the answers to know which way to move next and what problem to work on. Each problem solved brings the bee closer to her home. A total of 10 to 12 problems are needed for the bee to be back home safely, which is a reasonable number for most kids to work on during one class sitting.

Not only this, but kids are also awarded congratulatory cards to help them celebrate their achievements.

Want to try one with your class. Check them out here.

3. Color by Number Worksheets

Who does not love coloring? I know my kids do. Every time I use any kind of coloring activity with math problems, my whole class fills up with excitement and joy.

This is why I have one for every topic in my class. Honestly, most kids do not like to practice math, so this is my best bet to keep them engaged.

All you need to do is have a simple worksheet you want them to work on, and along with that, give a single piece of extra paper for them to doodle on.

For every problem they solve, let them draw some fun stuff they want on paper and color it. This keeps the creative juice flowing inside the brain and excitement running in your class.

Coloring is relaxing for kids. This is the very reason why I have made these color by number worksheets to go along with every topic that I teach in my 5th grade, whether it’s addition and subtraction of fractions, mixed numbers, or decimals.

These 2 pagers fun color by number activity worksheets are exciting and self checking. That makes them easy for you to grade and engaging for the kids to learn.

Every topic has a separate color by number picture template used instead of one single one so kids do not get bored by seeing the same stuff repeatedly. So, if you do not like to create or go through the hustle of creating one for your class, check out my TPT store.

Want to get some Color by Number activities? [Click here to check]

Want to read some more teaching ideas click here.

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