The goal of every student in this fifth grade is to gain by becoming a  better reader, writer, mathematician, overall student, and friend throughout the course of this year.  We do that by "Going from what we know to what we don't know."  In other words start where you are and aim high!

Grade 5 Curriculum Outline

Reading

In fifth grade we continue working on strategies of reading that drives reading forward.  Students are thinking and writing ideas related to these strategies in their reading logs.  We begin reading groups that focus on increasing each and every child's reading skills based upon benchmark testing.

Writing

We will write stories or scripts containing the basic elements of fiction

Write poems using poetic techniques, figurative language and graphic elements.

Write brief research reports with clear focus and supporting detail.  Write a short explanation of a process that includes a topic statement, supporting details and a conclusion.  Write formal letters to correspondents such as authors, newspapers, businesses or government officials.  Make distinctions among fiction, nonfiction, dramatic literature, and poetry and use these genres selectively when writing for different purposes. Students will demonstrate improvement in organization, content, paragraph, development, level of detail, style, tone and word choice (diction).  Students will improve word choice by using dictionaries or thesauruses.  Students will use knowledge of standard English conventions in their writing, revising and editing.  Use additional knowledge of correct mechanics, correct sentence structure and correct standard English spelling when writing, revising and editing.  Decide on placement of descriptive details about setting, characters and events in stories.  Group related ideas and place them in logical order when writing summaries or reports.  Organize information about a topic into a coherent paragraph with a topic sentence, sufficient supporting detail and a concluding sentence.  Students will gather information from a variety of sources, analyze and evaluate the quality of the information they obtain and use it to answer their own questions.  Apply steps for obtaining information from a variety of sources, organizing information, documenting sources and presenting research in individual and group projects.  

Math

Investigations Curriculum by TERC

Students will demonstrate an understanding of positive integer powers of 10, and understanding of place value through millions, represent and compare large and small positive numbers in various forms including expanded notation, demonstrate an understanding of fractions as a ratio of whole numbers, as parts of unit, as parts of a collection, identify and determine common equivalent fractions, compare and order whole numbers, positive fractions, mixed numbers, decimals and percents, apply the theory of concepts of common factor, common multiple and divisibility rules, and demonstrate an understanding of concepts of prime and composite numbers.

Students will learn how parentheses affect expressions and understand the inverse relationship of addition and subtraction as well as how to simplify computation and solve problems. 

We will solve problems involving proportional relationships using concrete models including tables and graphs and interpret graphs that represent the relationship between two variables in everyday situations.  

Finally, we will learn about spatial relationships, transformations and symmetry, techniques and tools to determine measurements, data collection, statistical methods, inferences and predictions and probability.

Social Studies

The overall curriculum of fifth grade is North America.  We will start by learning about geography.  We will learn about the earliest North Americans - the Inuit, the Anasazi, and the Mound Builders as well as the Native Americans who inhabited North and South America prior to European Exploration.  We will learn about the exploration of North America by European Explorers and will study the earliest settlers, the 13 colonies, the American Revolution, the US Constitution and Westward Expansion.

Science

We will do units on Weather, Forms of Energy and Materials and Tool/Engineering Design.