A blank bell ringer sheet is great when you already know what you want to ask. Some mornings you don’t. You’ve got a stack of copies that needs to exist and a bell that’s about to ring. These bell ringer worksheets have the prompts already printed on them. Hand them out, start the timer, and check the answers below.
There are two free printable PDFs: one for grades 6–8 and one for grades 9–12. Each is one page with five prompts, one per day, Monday through Friday. No email, no sign-up.
Download the free bell ringer worksheets
- Bell Ringer Worksheet, Grades 6–8 (PDF): ELA, math, science, social studies, and a Friday would-you-rather.
- Bell Ringer Worksheet, Grades 9–12 (PDF): the same five-day layout with higher-level prompts.
Both are standard 8.5 × 11 letter size, print fine in black and white, and have lines for name, date, and period. The PDFs have prompts only, with no answers, so you can hand them straight to students. The answer key is on this page, folded up under each prompt.
Want blank boxes so you can write your own prompts? Grab the free bell ringer sheet templates instead. This page is the ready-made version.
Bell ringer worksheet for grades 6–8: prompts and answers
These are the five prompts printed on the grades 6–8 worksheet. Each one is built to take 3 to 5 minutes.
Monday: ELA
Rewrite this sentence with the mistakes fixed: “Their going to the game, but its to far to walk.”
Answers and teacher notes
Answer: They’re going to the game, but it’s too far to walk.
There are three mistakes. Their should be they’re (they are). Its should be it’s (it is). To should be too, the spelling that signals a greater degree of something, as in “too far.”
Teach the swap test: say “they are” or “it is” in place of the word. If the sentence still makes sense, use the apostrophe. The NMU Writing Center explains this test for their/there/they’re and its/it’s, and Principia’s commonly confused words list covers to/too/two.
Tuesday: Math
A shirt costs $24 and is on sale for 25% off. What is the sale price? Show your work.
Answers and teacher notes
Answer: $18.
Work: 25% of $24 is 0.25 × 24 = $6 off. Then $24 − $6 = $18.
Check (shortcut): paying 75% of the price gives 0.75 × 24 = $18. Same answer both ways.
The usual mistake is stopping at $6, which is the discount, not the sale price. Another one to watch for is subtracting 25 straight from 24, which treats the percent as dollars.
Wednesday: Science
A metal spoon and a wooden spoon sit on the counter all night. In the morning, the metal one feels colder. Is it actually colder? Explain.
Answers and teacher notes
Answer: No. After a night on the counter, both spoons are at room temperature. The metal one feels colder because metal pulls heat away from your skin faster than wood does, so the skin touching it cools more quickly. Your hand is sensing how fast it loses heat, not the spoon’s actual temperature. Source: Exploratorium, Cold Metal.
A common wrong answer is that metal “holds cold.” Steer students toward the real idea: the difference is in how fast heat leaves their hand. If you have a thermometer handy, have them measure both spoons and compare.
Thursday: Social Studies
A friend says, “Lines of latitude run north–south.” Is your friend right? Explain what lines of latitude do and what they measure.
Answers and teacher notes
Answer: Your friend is wrong. Lines of latitude run east to west, parallel to the equator, and they measure how far a place is north or south of the equator, from 0° at the equator to 90° at the poles. The lines that run north to south are lines of longitude, also called meridians.
Memory trick: latitude lines are flat, like the rungs of a ladder.
Sources: NOAA National Ocean Service on latitude (direction and what it measures) and NOAA’s nautical chart tutorial (longitude lines run north to south).
Friday: Would you rather
Would you rather have no homework but a longer school day, or homework but a shorter school day? Give two reasons and one downside.
Answers and teacher notes
Answer: There is no right answer, so accept either side. Look for two real reasons and one honest downside, not just “because it’s better.”
Because the prompt asks for a downside, students have to look at both sides of their own choice. A good follow-up: “Which downside would bother you more by March?”
Bell ringer worksheet for grades 9–12: prompts and answers
These are the five prompts printed on the grades 9–12 worksheet. They are still 3 to 5 minutes each, with more reasoning and less recall.
Monday: ELA
Name the fallacy: “Everyone in my grade is buying these sneakers, so they must be the best.” Then rewrite the claim so it relies on evidence.
Answers and teacher notes
Answer: This is the bandwagon fallacy, also called an appeal to popularity (ad populum). It treats a claim as true because many people think it or do it. Purdue OWL describes it as appealing to what most people, or a group of people, think in order to persuade someone to think the same way. Source: Purdue OWL, Fallacies.
Sample rewrite: “These sneakers are the best value for me because they cost less than the other pairs I compared and have the sturdiest soles.” Any rewrite that points to a checkable reason, such as price, durability, fit, or test results, earns credit.
Worth saying out loud: popularity can be evidence that something is popular. It just isn’t evidence that it’s the best.
Tuesday: Math
A car is worth $20,000 today and loses 15% of its value each year. What is it worth after 2 years? Show your work.
Answers and teacher notes
Answer: $14,450.
Work: Year 1: 15% of $20,000 is $3,000, so the car is worth $17,000. Year 2: 15% of $17,000 is $2,550, so the car is worth $14,450.
Check (shortcut): 20,000 × 0.85 × 0.85 = 20,000 × 0.7225 = $14,450. Same answer both ways.
The usual mistake is taking 30% off the original, which gives $14,000. The second year’s 15% comes off the smaller $17,000, not the original $20,000.
Wednesday: Science
A student gives fertilizer to 10 tomato plants on a sunny windowsill and none to 10 plants in a dark closet. The fertilized plants grow taller. What is wrong with this experiment, and how would you fix it?
Answers and teacher notes
Answer: The experiment changes two things at once: fertilizer and light. Because the fertilized plants also got sun and the others sat in the dark, there is no way to tell which one caused the difference in height.
Fix: Put both groups in the same sunny spot and keep everything else the same (soil, pot size, water, temperature, plant type). Then fertilizer is the only difference.
In science-fair terms, fertilizer is the independent variable, plant height is the dependent variable, and everything else should be a controlled variable. Science Buddies explains why only one variable should change in a fair test: if several change together, you can’t tell which one caused the result. Source: Science Buddies, Variables.
Thursday: Social Studies
A soldier’s letter home from a war and a textbook chapter about that war: which is a primary source and which is secondary? Could the textbook ever be a primary source? Explain.
Answers and teacher notes
Answer: The soldier’s letter is the primary source: it comes from someone who was there, at the time. The textbook chapter is a secondary source: it was written later by people who did not witness the events.
The textbook can be a primary source, depending on the question. If you are studying how a country taught its own history in the 1950s, then a 1950s textbook is a primary source for that question. The Library of Congress makes the same point with an example: an image can be secondary for one question and primary for another, so it helps to ask “when would this be a primary source?” instead of “is this primary?” Source: Library of Congress, Teaching with Primary Sources.
Friday: Would you rather
Would you rather pause time for 10 minutes once a day or rewind time by 10 minutes once a day? Describe one time you would use it and one way it could backfire.
Answers and teacher notes
Answer: No right answer. Accept either choice. You are looking for a specific use (not “to do stuff”) and a backfire that follows logically from the choice.
Push for specifics: what exactly would you do with the ten minutes, and what is the catch? If a student picks rewind, ask what they would do differently the second time through.
How to use bell ringer worksheets in class
- Print one worksheet per student for the week. Keep a class set in a folder or have students keep theirs in a binder.
- Hand it out as kids walk in. The prompt is already printed, so nobody is waiting on you to write it on the board.
- Run a visible timer for 3 to 5 minutes. When it ends, it ends. The goal is a fast start, not a finished essay.
- Review one prompt, not all of them. Take a minute on the answer or ask two students to share. Move on.
- Collect on Friday. Grade for completion and spot-check one box. For the full routine, see how to grade bell ringer sheets fast.
Why printed prompts help
A printed prompt takes the setup work off you. It also takes the “what are we doing?” questions off the first two minutes of class.
There’s a learning reason too. Pulling an idea back out of memory, instead of looking at it again, is called retrieval practice. ASCD describes it as deliberately bringing previously learned material back to mind, as a learning tool rather than a graded test, and says it can take about a minute. eSchoolNews suggests a daily dose of low-stakes recall. A bell ringer is a natural place to do that.
One caution: these sample worksheets are mixed review, not matched to any one unit. If you want prompts tied to what you taught this week, make your own.
How to make your own bell ringer worksheets
- Pick five prompts. One per day, or one per subject. Pull them from our big lists: 100 bell ringer questions, math, science, social studies, and grammar.
- Keep each one to 3 to 5 minutes. If the answer needs a full paragraph and a source, it’s a homework question, not a bell ringer.
- Build a simple table. In Google Docs or Word, make one row per day with the prompt on top and four to six answer lines under it.
- Put the answer key on a separate page. Never on the student copy.
- Save it as a PDF and reuse it. Next year, swap two or three prompts instead of starting over.
If you’d rather not write them, the Bell Ringer Creator will write custom bell ringers for any grade, subject, and topic. It’s free for teachers, but it asks for an email to unlock.
Bell ringer worksheet FAQ
Are these bell ringer worksheets free?
Yes. The PDFs are free for classroom use, with no email and no sign-up.
What’s the difference between a bell ringer worksheet and a bell ringer sheet?
A worksheet has the prompts printed on it. A bell ringer sheet is a blank template with boxes where you supply the prompts. Use a sheet when you write your own, and a worksheet when you want it ready to go.
Do the worksheets include answers?
The PDFs do not. The answers and teacher notes are on this page, under each prompt.
Can I edit the PDFs?
No, they are fixed PDFs. To change a prompt, copy the wording from this page into your own document, or start from a blank sheet.
How long should a bell ringer take?
Three to five minutes per prompt. One box per day, so a full worksheet covers a week.
Want a fresh set every day?
You don’t have to wait for next week’s worksheet. Every school day we post a new five-subject set for grades 6–8 and grades 9–12, before 2 a.m. Central, with answers and teacher notes. Free, no sign-up.
Not sure which level fits your class? See our guides to bell ringers for middle school and bell ringers for high school. New to the idea? Start with what a bell ringer is and how to run one.