5th Grade Curriculum
Language Arts
The fifth grade language arts curriculum requires students to communicate through oral and written expression to an ever-widening audience and forever- broadening purposes. Students apply grammar, usage, mechanics, and spelling through participation in the writing process. Students learn to construct three types of multi-paragraph essays that share a common theme. When constructing the expository, persuasive, and narrative essays, students will focus on the six writing domains. Fiction and nonfiction reading passages provide models of good writing and stimuli for writing. Improved listening skills 10 become essential as students work cooperatively to achieve group goals. The teaching of language arts is cross-curricular with language arts serving as an integral part of the curriculum.
Mathematics
Building on concepts mastered in earlier years this course will allow the students to demonstrate the multiplication and division of larger numbers, subtract, multiply and divide fractions, mixed numbers and decimals, and demonstrate the ability to find and understand a percent of a number. They will demonstrate a grasp of geometric concepts of line and two or three-dimensional shapes, work with right triangles, and tree diagrams. The students will also understand and use inductive and deductive reasoning, create and solve word problems, and identify and use appropriate tools for measurement and work with the results. The students will also apply a variety of problem solving strategies, interpret, select and construct a graph from given data, recognize the correct order of operations, and the use of variables in an equation.
Social Studies
In grade five, students will study the United States, focusing on the influence of physical and cultural environments on national origins, growth, and development. Emphasis should be placed upon historical study of Native American cultures, European exploration, colonization and settlement, and revolution against British rule. Students will identify major physical and cultural characteristics of the United States and its regions and describe how the United States is related geographically to the rest of the world. They will identify major components and characteristics of United States government and key ideas in government up to and including colonial and founding periods that continue to influence political and civic life. Students will describe the productive resources and market relationships that influence the way people produce goods and services and earn a living in different parts of the United States and examine the challenges faced and the contributions made by various cultural groups to American society. Students will apply content knowledge to problem-solving skills as they examine fact and opinion, analyze and evaluate sources of information, compare and contrast, and interpret primary and secondary sources. Students will ask questions based on understandings of history, geography, and the social sciences and conduct research using a variety of informational resources, such as books, periodicals, maps, globes, diaries, photographs, recordings, databases, and web sites.
Science
The fifth grade students work collaboratively to carry out investigations. They repeat investigations, explain inconsistencies, and design projects. Students compare, contrast, explain, and justify information and numerical functions. They identify questions that can be answered by data distributions. Students continue to investigate changes of Earth and sky. They explore an ever-increasing variety of organisms and their interactions with each other and their environments. Students investigate 18 how to use tools to connect and analyze information. They use data to identify relationships between objects, events, and processes. They use mental and physical models to conceptualize processes. Students gain understanding of how scientific enterprise operates through examples and events.