Daily warm-ups—sometimes called Do Now activities or bell ringers—are small but mighty tools in the Grade 5 ELA classroom. Not only do they help reinforce prior knowledge and skills, but they also give students a predictable start to class, improve pacing, and support classroom management. When students enter your room knowing what to expect, it sets a positive, productive tone for learning.
If you’re seeking fresh ideas and practical routines for ELA Do Nows, this post is here to help. Read on for classroom-tested Grade 5 ELA Do Now activities, tips for making warm-ups part of your daily routine, and resources to get you started—plus links to Grade 5 ELA worksheets you can print and use tomorrow.
Building classroom routines with daily warm-ups doesn’t have to be complicated. With a few reliable activities and consistent implementation, your ELA class will be off to a focused, confident start each morning—and students’ skills will grow a little more every day. Happy teaching!
Are you looking for ways to energize your Grade 5 math lessons from the moment students walk into your classroom? Starting with short, engaging daily warm-ups—often called Do Now activities or math bell ringers—is a classroom routine that pays big dividends. These quick tasks reinforce prior knowledge, boost student confidence, and help manage the transition into class time smoothly. Plus, they’re a great way to consistently review concepts like fraction practice and decimal place value without taking up too much instructional time.
With a few minutes of targeted practice each day, your students will sharpen their skills while you build a calm and focused learning environment. Happy teaching!
Starting your Grade 5 math classes with engaging, daily warm-ups—or Do Now activities—can make a big difference in your students’ success. These quick routines help reinforce prior knowledge, set the tone for focused learning, and give you precious minutes to get organized while students settle in. Incorporating math bell ringers into your classroom routines not only improves pacing but also strengthens classroom management by giving students a clear, purposeful task as soon as they enter the room.
Here are some ready-to-use daily warm-ups tailored for Grade 5 math, with practical tips for implementing Do Nows every day.
If you’re looking for more ready-made resources, check out these Grade 5 math worksheets with daily warm-ups for fraction practice, decimal place value, and multi-step problem-solving. Using these math bell ringers regularly supports your classroom routines and keeps your students growing every day!
Incorporate these Do Now activities into your Grade 5 math classes to make the most of every minute—and watch your students’ confidence and skills soar!
Every teacher knows the reassuring rhythm that a good "Do Now" brings to the start of class. You probably don’t need anyone to tell you that bell-ringers settle the room or signal it’s time to learn. But beyond these well-known benefits, one underappreciated value stands out: they provide teachers with silence and space for quick, meaningful check-ins—with data, the roster, or a student who needs a word.
That first five minutes is often the only predictable quiet moment all day. While students work independently, , teachers can take the pulse of the room: Who is absent? Who’s especially tired? Are yesterday’s misunderstandings showing up in today’s warm-up?
This isn’t just intuition—research supports it. Studies on formative assessment highlight how even brief, targeted tasks at the start of class provide immediate formative data (Black & Wiliam, 2009). You see which skills are sticking, which ones need another pass, and you get a real-time snapshot of class readiness without waiting for a quiz or assignment. That’s invaluable when you have to adjust your plans on the fly, or differentiate for a particular learner’s needs.
Here’s what that “teacher quiet time” during Do Nows can empower you to do:
Of course, Do Nows help students transition—but for educators, these few minutes can be a lifeline, letting you enter the day’s lesson with sharper insight and clearer focus. The value of that is hard to overstate, especially when days are packed and unpredictable.
If you ever feel a little guilty for using those first minutes to regroup, reflect, or observe, remember: that time is as critical to your teaching as it is to student learning. The quiet hum of students working at the bell isn’t just a management trick—it’s your chance to collect yourself, to check in with your classroom and with yourself, so you can meet the day’s challenges head-on (again).
There’s something almost magical about the hum of students settling in with a quick, purposeful task as the day begins. As K-8 teachers, you’ve probably relied on Do Nows (or bell-ringers, warm-ups—whatever your label of choice) to start class smoothly. But beyond jumpstarting attention and easing transitions, Do Nows offer a practical, often underappreciated benefit: they give you a daily snapshot of what your students actually know—and what they’re ready for next.
When students engage with a Do Now, you’re getting immediate, low-stakes feedback. Unlike summative quizzes or large projects, these bite-sized tasks strip away the anxiety and let students show what they understand right then and there. This is formative assessment in its purest, most actionable form. A simple math problem on subtracting fractions or a prompt to recall yesterday’s writing strategy becomes fast data, letting you see who’s ready to push ahead and who needs a bit more scaffolding.
Think of these moments as your daily formative window. Widely cited research supports the idea that formative assessment—checking for understanding while learning is underway—substantially boosts achievement. According to Black & Wiliam (1998), even small, frequent check-ins improve learning outcomes, especially when these checks are used to fine-tune teaching. Do Nows are practically tailor-made for the rhythm of a K-8 day: brief, targeted, manageable, and most importantly, habitual.
The value here isn’t just in “covering” material or filling the first five minutes. It’s about reclaiming those moments as ongoing, real-time assessment. You're not just giving students something to do—you’re giving yourself actionable insight, every single day. For teachers who already have dozens of plates spinning, that’s not just valuable; it’s essential.