If you’re trying to figure out what to do with students who finish early, this post on early finisher activities for 5th grade is just what you need.
In a perfect world, fifth graders would keep themselves busy with learning tasks while you attend to students who need your assistance.
However, the reality is that we educators must prepare for those fast finishers by providing an assortment of early finisher activities designed specifically for 5th graders.
The following fifth-grade early finisher activities reinforce academic skills, promote critical thinking, and appeal to a range of ability levels.
That’s why they make a great addition to your collection of elementary teaching resources.
What’s more, if you’re looking to challenge early finishers, many of these tasks can be adapted to do just that.
So whether you seek early finisher activities for 5th grade in the areas of math, literacy, science, or social studies, these exercises will serve your needs.
Early Finisher Activities For 5th Grade
1. Encourage Students to Explore Coding.
If you have access to a computer lab or individual student technological devices, this early finisher activity will definitely be worth it.
Motivate fifth-graders to explore computer science concepts by offering them the opportunity to do coding.
The website code.org provides a computer science curriculum that teachers can use to increase student participation in these STEM activities.
Tasks include a variety of free projects, courses, and lessons that students may work on independently.
2. Practice Origami.
Origami is a Japanese art form that involves folding paper into decorative figures.
It’s a great activity for the brain because it improves mental concentration, fine motor skills, and hand-eye coordination. It can even be relaxing.
Additionally, if you want to reinforce to your fifth-graders the importance of following directions, this early finisher activity is the perfect fit.
To prepare for this fast-finisher activity, provide students with a set of instructions and sheets of colored paper for them to create the shapes.
Challenge them to make one or two shapes.
Have students try this 5th-grade origami exercise or these easy origami projects.
3. Work On Brain Teasers.
Brain teasers are exercises that stretch one’s mental abilities, prompting the person to think outside of the box in order to find a solution to a problem.
The benefits of engaging in these activities include improved memory, greater critical thinking/problem-solving skills, mental sharpness, and stimulation of creativity.
To provide this option as a fifth-grade early finisher task, provide students with an assortment of logic puzzles, riddles, and Sudoku puzzles to solve.
4. Review Work.
If you seek simple early finisher activities for 5th grade that don’t require gathering materials, this fast-finisher idea is for you.
The only thing students need to do is review a recently-completed assignment.
I’m sure you constantly remind students to check over their work before submitting it.
Reviewing work for errors and careless mistakes seems like an easy task to remember, but so many students forget to do it or do a poor job of it.
Offering this task as a fast-finisher activity gives students the extra time and concentration needed to review work thoroughly.
5. Design a Bulletin Board.
For original fifth-grade early finisher activities, challenge students to design a bulletin board related to a current unit of study.
They see examples of bulletin boards all around the school, so why not encourage them to create one of their own?
Doing so not only stretches their imaginations and prompts them to apply their knowledge, but it saves you time as a teacher since you’ll now have a bank of ideas to use for bulletin boards throughout the year.
6. Update Your Student Grade Sheet.
As educators, we want students to be invested in their educations. We want them to show concern and interest in the work they produce.
One way to encourage this is by having students keep a student grade sheet throughout the school year. (works best if your school utilizes an A, B, C, D, and F grading system)
As you distribute graded assignments to your fifth graders, give them time to record their scores and averages on a student grade sheet.
This helpful activity also helps fifth graders transition into a task that they will most likely be doing in middle school.
7. Perform a Brain Break.
With the workload many fifth-graders have during the school day, a short break is welcomed and needed.
Help students disconnect a bit with brain breaks.
Not only can these fun exercises be educational, but they help students become more relaxed and productive.
Final Thoughts On Early Finisher Activities For 5th Grade
You no longer need to think about what to do with students who finish work early.
Now you have a collection of engaging early finisher activities for 5th grade students that require minimal preparation time.