Colorful October Math + Free Printables for Easy Organization | 5th Grade

[Our October math activities are available for third, fourth, and fifth grade.]

Hopefully you are settling into routines with your class. The jitters have quieted down, students feel confident in the expectations and routines you have established, and everyone’s ready and eager to learn.

Sometimes it’s easily overlooked, but paying attention to organization can help keep the year running smoothly. Just as you’ve taught your students to clean and organize classroom and personal school supplies, it’s important for you to be organized so you can feel confident and ready to teach too.

Just as we all have our unique strengths and challenges, so too do we have our own organizational styles. Below is one idea to organize all the amazing activities you are accumulating each month. 

Short on time? Quickly write labels of the month on file folders and keep tidy and tucked away in a filing cabinet or file folder bin.

If you like things extra organized, make a file for each month and a folder for masters, answer keys, and reusable center materials. 

Not into filing? Want something with a little more pizazz and color? Read the 3rd grade and 4th grade October blog posts for more organizational tips and ideas. You can also download free printable binder covers and labels for files, folders, or whatever makes you happy as you organize.

Now that you’re organized, time to pull out your planner and schedule this month’s new activities. Happy October!

Let’s take a closer look at what October’s bundle includes.

• Fall Math Facts
• Hidden Pumpkin Problems
• Corn Maze Decimal Multiplication & Division
• Trick-or-Treat Rounding
• Spooky Shape Sorting
• Candy Craze Decimal Comparison Game
• Dia de los Muertos – Color by Number
• Halloween Logic Puzzle

Fall Math Facts

While it’s expected for 5th graders to know their multiplication and division facts, we know it’s not always reality. Here are 3 levels to help your students freshen up their multiplication and division skills.

• multiplication
• division
• mixed

Hidden Pumpkin Problems

Students practice writing numerical expressions with parentheses and then find them in a number search. Go one step further and have students solve each expression.

Corn Maze Multiplication & Division

Grab a white board & marker, some place value blocks, or even plastic money to help struggling students with this activity. Students follow the maze while finding multiplication and division equations with decimals.

Pro Tip: Encourage students to give the numbers context to help solve. For example, with 30 x 0.08, students might say there is a class of 30 students who each have 8 cents. How much do they have altogether?

Trick-or-Treat Rounding

Practice rounding to the nearest whole number, tenth, and hundredth with this spookily fun Halloween-themed activity. Watch out for the extra numbers trying to trick you! Cut, sort, glue, color. Enjoy!

Spooky Shape Sorting

Two activities in one!!

Each of the two activities comes with two levels as well. The lower level has clues to help arrange the triangles and quadrilaterals in their hierarchies. The higher levels have no clues, so students must use more reasoning skills to place each shape.

Candy Craze Comparisons

This game is great for centers, whole class, or small groups and is played with two or more players.

Each player needs a place value mat with 4 spaces. There are two different mats (tenths and hundredths). Players take turn drawing cards with the digits 1-9 trying to make the highest number possible. (You can print and cut or use regular playing cards).

Students love this game due to its combination of luck and skill. Each time you pick a card, you have to place it on your mat, knowing once it’s down, it cannot move. After all mats are filled, numbers are recorded and compared. If you’re playing with more than 2 players, students can order them from least to greatest.

In the higher level of this game, students make 2 numbers, add, then compare the sums.

Dia de los Muertos Color by Number

Ready for classroom redecorating? This activity is arriving well in time for Dia de los Muertos beginning on November 1. You might want to keep these colorful decorations up all month long though.

First, students solve addition and subtraction word problems with fractions. Then, they use the answers to color a skull that can be cut out and displayed on your walls.

Bonus Alert!! There’s an additional bonus activity to make papel picado (pierced paper) artwork to hang up in your room too. You can print on white paper and have students make equivalent fractions, then color, and cut. You can also print on brightly colored paper, fill in  fractions, cut, and display.

Halloween Logic Puzzle

Best for last?

I LOVE logic puzzles. The harder and more complicated, the better. However, if your students are new to logic puzzles, this is a great place to start.

Halloween tricksters have taken over the numbers in these logic puzzles. Students use clues to figure out which characters are parading as which digits. In the lower level, there are only 5 digits to figure out, and more than enough clues to solve the entire puzzle. The higher level has 9 digits in disguise and will take a bit more mental energy to solve.

Happy Halloween!

October Math Freebie Worksheet

Fill out the form below to receive a free October Math Worksheet!

View the Grade Level Bundles

Purchase the bundles and save!

• Monthly themed games, puzzles, riddles, coloring, and more!
• 2 levels for differentiation
• BW & Color
• Answer Keys