FREE 5th Grade Emergency Sub Plans

These free 5th grade sub plans have been created by The Curriculum Corner and are perfect for when something unexpected happens and you can’t make it to school!

This is another free resource for teachers from The Curriculum Corner.

This is our second set of emergency sub plans for 5th grade classrooms.

This post shares our 5th grade plans.

You can download the entire, free set of 5th grade sub plans by clicking on the bold link at the bottom of this post.

Many of these resources have adventurous mountain climbing themed clip art, so we have some suggested picture books that might pair well with that theme.

The lessons, activities and practice pages that are a part of our 5th Grade Sub Plans meet standards for fifth grade.

Setting up your 5th Grade Sub Plans

To make these emergency plans work in your best interest, plan ahead!

Type up your plans & directions and print these materials in advance. When you do need to call in, you can avoid driving to school in the middle of the night.

Unfortunately we all know what that’s like and it’s no fun!

Put your plans and everything a guest teacher will need into a tub and mark it clearly with the words “Sub Tub”.

Our goal for these 5th grade sub plans was to create activities that could act as review since these need to be applicable at any point in the year. You never know when you might need them!

MATH

Find Your Match Decimal Activity

For this activity you will need to have printed off the exact number of cards as you have students.

Pass out the cards. Students look at their decimal numbers and then search the room to find two other students whose decimal card matches theirs.

We have also created a recording page for students to work on once they have found their two other matches.

Print the number cards on card stock, laminate and put into a baggie. Copy a class set of the recording page if you want students to work on that after finishing the matching activity.

Pick Two and Add (or Subtract)

This is a simple activity where students draw cards and then write & solve a problem.

We have provided two student recording pages for you to choose from.

You can use the same set of forty number cards from the matching activity above for this.

Just copy a class set of recording pages to add to your Sub Tub.

Mountain Climbing Logic Puzzles

Give your students logical thinking practice with these two logic problems. Includes answer keys.

Extra Practice Pages

We have provide two different practice pages you can copy and put in your Sub Tub to be a part of your lesson plans or as time filler possibilities if a guest teacher needs them.

There is one page involving perimeter, area and volume & another page of addition decimal practice.

It’s always good to have extra math skill pages ready for a sub to use!

READING

Fiction Graphic Organizer

We have created a story map that can be used with any fiction book, but if you would like to keep with the mountain climbing theme, the book When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant is a great choice.

The guest teacher reads aloud the book and then works with students to model how to complete the story map.

Copy a class set of story maps for students to use with fiction books during independent reading and place it in the Sub Tub with a book of your choice.

Informational Text & Vocab Graphic Organizers

If your students are currently involved in more nonfiction texts, you may want your guest teacher to read aloud an excerpt from the book Mountains by _______________ (or another topic) and model how to fill out one of these info text graphic organizers.

The first (I Can Read Informational Text) requires students to identify an author’s purpose and three details from the text.

The second (Building Understanding) is a vocabulary web the teacher could model with one or two words from the book.

Again, copy a set of the informational text graphic organizers of your choice for your students to use during independent reading and place it in the Sub Tub with a book of your choice.

WORD WORK

Making Words

Students use the letters in the word MOUNTAINS to create smaller words. Comes with a half-page of letters for students to cut out and manipulate to make the words.

Mountain Climbing Boggle

This activity is easy and fun for students, while helping them to spell new words.

Copy a class set of these pages and that is all that this requires.

Students are to find mountain climbing related words in the Boggle board and write them in the boxes below.

We suggest you set a minimum number of words for students to find, but many will try to fill all the boxes if you present it as a challenge.

Students can color or shade in words as they find them, much the same as a word search.

LANGUAGE

Classifying Climbing Words

The brainstorming activity has students thinking of all the mountain climbing related words they can and then placing them in the correct parts of speech boxes for nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs.

Expanding Sentences

We always want our students to write and revise sentences that are full of voice and very descriptive, but this takes practice.

For this activity we have provided 12 extremely simply three and four word sentences.

Print out the pages and cut them apart for your Sub Tub.

The directions are to work with pairs or groups of three to expand the given sentences using colorful adjectives, adverbs and additional words or phrases so that readers can visualize something vivid as the sentences are read aloud.

When everyone has expanded their sentences, gather the class and have the groups read their original sentences followed by the one they expanded.

A discussion about how much easier it was to visualize the author’s intent can follow.

WRITING

Writing Prompts

We have created four easy writing prompts (one is simply a picture).

You can allow students to choose their own or assign the same one to all members of the class.

Just be sure to leave enough sets in your Sub Tub. We like the idea of having the guest teacher model an example with the class before students are set off on their own.

We have also provided additional blank templates in case you would like to assign a topic of your choice – either with an adventure theme or something completely different.

Blank Books are a good addition to your sub tub. Provide an assortment of blank books and lined pages.

SCIENCE

Mountain Brochure

This brochure would require your students to conduct simple research about various mountains.

They will need to have access to several nonfiction books about mountains or tablets/iPads to search for information in order to complete the brochures.

If you wanted, you could provide several copies of printed information about one specific mountain and have your students all create their brochures by reading the information you provide in the Sub Tub.

Venn Diagram

This page is for any type of open-ended compare/contrast activity that you think would be good for your students.

Copy a set of the pages and then leave your idea in your sub plans.

In going along with the mountain climbing/adventure theme, students could work independently or in partners to compare two different mountains in our country, on our continent or in our world.

You can download the complete set of 5th grade sub plans here:

Sub Plans

Here are a few of our books that pair with the lessons above (contains affiliate links):

As with all of our resources, The Curriculum Corner creates these for free classroom use. Our products may not be sold. You may print and copy for your personal classroom use. These are also great for home school families!

You may not modify and resell in any form. Please let us know if you have any questions.