Grade Level Curriculum Guides

Fifth Grade

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LANGUAGE ARTS

The Fifth grade curriculum continues to develop the skills learned in the lower grades, applying them to more complex work.  Teachers focus on building  independence in order to get students ready for the Middle School. The skills that they reinforce throughout the year include:

ORAL COMMUNICATION

·        Ability to speak extemporaneously.

·        Using grammatically correct language.

·        Speaking clearly and with appropriate volume.

READING

·        Recognition and retelling events from a story in sequential order.

·        Identification of problems in literature.

·        Using anthologies and novels of different genres.

·        Sharing and evaluating literature with others.

·        Recognition of the elements of a story such as rising action, falling action, climax, characters, theme, plot, setting, mood, and cause and effect.

·        Analyzing cause and effect.

·        Interpretation of pictures, charts, graphs, and maps to gain information.

·        Ability to predict outcomes, draw conclusions, make inferences, and summarize literature.

·        Developing new vocabulary through the use of literature.

·        Using reading strategies, contextual clues, phonetic and pictorial clues to understand a story=s meaning.

·        Guidance in the selection of works from a variety of genres.

·        Reading for pleasure and for information.

·        Differentiation between fact and fiction.

·        Identification of the author=s purpose (persuade, entertain, inform).

·        Identifying and exploring figurative language.

WRITING

·        Identification and utilization of capitalization, punctuation, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, subjects, and predicates.

·        Spelling appropriate high frequency words.

·        Editing, revising, and evaluating own work

·        Using note taking techniques and writing rough drafts.

·        Brainstorming ideas and using semantic mapping to organize thoughts.

·        Reading and writing of fantasy, songs, poetry, realistic fiction, informational articles, folklore, interviews, plays, biographies, autobiographies, science fiction, friendly letters, business letters, personal narratives, and persuasive works.

·        Using cursive writing with frequency, speed, and legibility.

·        Using and interpreting figurative language, point of view, flashback, and foreshadowing.

·        Writing for a variety of audiences.

·        Developing a well organized,  multiple paragraph written piece with both an introduction and conclusion.

·        Using a dictionary, encyclopedia, thesaurus, newspaper, atlas, almanac, and computer to gain information.

·        Summarizing and paraphrasing information.

SOCIAL STUDIES

The Fifth Grade Social Studies curriculum focuses on the history of the Western Hemisphere.  Students are exposed to learning more about the United States as well as its neighbors, Canada, the Caribbean, and Latin America.  We develop the following skills within this area of study:

·        Researching and locating information.

·        Using different resources to obtain information.

·        Taking notes.

·        Organizing collected information.

·        Making an outline.

·        Sequencing events.

·        Creating and reading time lines.

·        Using charts, tables, and graphs.

·        Introduction to interpreting political cartoons.

·        Writing a biographical sketch.

·        Making a bibliography.

·        Asking insightful questions.

·        Identifying propaganda.

·        Recognizing different points of view.

·        Reporting and analyzing current events.

·        Classifying and analyzing data.

·        Writing reports and essay.

·        The Fifth Grade Social Studies content areas investigated include:

HISTORY

·        Key events in Western Hemisphere history can be identified by years, decades, and centuries.

·        People of diverse cultural backgrounds in the Western Hemisphere have influenced each other over the years.

SOCIAL

·        The ethnic diversity in our culture and community should be appreciated.

·        Understanding that the Western Hemisphere has such problems as overpopulation, pollution, race relations, poverty, and territorial disputes.

·        Comprehension of how people of diverse cultural backgrounds have influenced each other through many factors.

GEOGRAPHY

·        Knowing and understanding the physical characteristics of the earth.

·        Using latitude and longitude to find places on a map and globe.

·        Understanding grids.

·        Recognizing the different time zones.

·        Understanding scales and legends.

·        Measuring the distance between two places using a scale.

·        Differentiating between weather and climate and its influence on an area.

·        Recognizing that people in various regions of the Western Hemisphere both affect and are affected by their physical environment.

·        Use of a variety of maps, globes, atlases, and other geographic tools to analyze the impact of geography on the people and nations of the Western Hemisphere.

ECONOMICS

·        Identify and recognize the economic role in society, politics, and culture.

·        Interpret tables and graphs.

·        Analyze how current events influence a nation=s economy.

·        Recognize costs and benefits of economic change.

·        Identify economic indicators that may affect growth or decline of the nation.

·        Understand ideas, practices, values, and problems of the American economic system.

·        Understand that scarcity is a fundamental problem to individuals and groups.

·        Problem solve ways to deal with scarcity.

·        Learn how nations depend on one another for products they need (import and export).

POLITICAL

·        Different political structures exist within the countries in the Western Hemisphere.

·        Government policies change to meet the needs of the people.

·        People in democratic nations share beliefs that govern their rules, laws, and government structures.

·        Critical decisions face all governments as members of the world community.

·        The media can be used as a resource to obtain information about the government.

MATHEMATICS

·        Place Value

·        Reading and writing numerals for whole numbers to one billion

·        Understanding and using the commutative, associative, and distributive properties.

·        Rounding numbers to the nearest 10,000.

·        Estimation

·        Relating rounding skills to estimation.

·        Decimals

·        Understanding place value of decimals to the thousandths.

·        Roman Numerals

·        Review of Roman numerals.

·        Whole Numbers

·        Further development of skills with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

·        Using proper terminology (i.e., factor, product, addend, etc.).

·        Word Problems

·        Reading, interpreting, and solving word problems.

·        Patterns

·        Continuing to develop the ability to recognize and reproduce patterns.

·        Graphs and Tables

·        Reading, interpreting, and constructing line, pie, and bar graphs, pictographs, tables, and charts.

·        Fractions

·        Understanding the concept of equivalent fractions.

·        Work further on reducing fractions.

·        Identifying proper and improper fractions.

·        Adding, subtracting and multiplying fractions.

·        Recognizing greatest common factors and least common multiples.

·        Probability

·        Predicting and determining probable outcomes.

·        Geometry

·        Comprehending basic concepts and vocabulary related to geometry.

·        Identifying solid figures.

·        Exploration of symmetry, similarity, and congruence.

·        Measurement

·        Continuing to measure length, distance, mass, volume, capacity, and temperature.

·        Developing area and perimeter formulas.

·        Developing skills in operations using both metric and customary units.
 

LIFE SCIENCE

·        Living things are affected by and affect the environment.

·        Each kind of plant or animal continues beyond the life span of the individual=s because each kind can produce offspring.

·        Different kinds of plants and animals in an area may be dependent upon each other for food and other needs.

·        Environmental conditions in an area determine the types and sizes of populations of plants and animals within a community.

·        Environmental conditions in an area affect the way the population interacts.

PHYSICAL SCIENCE

·        Energy and material have forms and properties.

·        A group of interacting objects is called a system.

·        Within systems, the interactions of materials and energy change their form and properties.

·        Energy may exist within a material or in the position or motion of objects.

·        Material and energy can be transferred several times within a complex system through a series of interactions.

ECOSYSTEMS

·        Energy and material can be transferred in an ecosystem.

·        We supplement the fifth grade science curriculum with hands-on science kits.  Students further develop their scientific problem solving skills while using these kits.  Students are encouraged to investigate, research, ask questions, propose solutions, and critically solve problems.