Fifth Grade Curriculum
English-Language Arts
READING
Word Analysis, Fluency, and Systematic Vocabulary Development
- Students use their knowledge of word origins and word relationships, as well as historical and literary context clues, to determine the meaning of specialized vocabulary and to understand the precise meaning of grade-level-appropriate words.
Reading Comprehension (Focus on Informational Materials)
Students:
- Read and understand grade-level-appropriate material.
- Describe and connect the essential ideas, arguments, and perspectives of the text by using their knowledge of text structure, organization, and purpose.
- Make progress toward the goal of by grade eight annually reading one million words on their own, including a wide range of grade level appropriate narrative and expository text.
Literary Response and Analysis
Students:
- Read and respond to historically or culturally significant works of literature.
- Begin to find ways to clarify the ideas and make connections between literary works.
WRITING
Writing Strategies
Students:
- Write clear, coherent, and focused essays that contain formal introductions, supporting evidence, and conclusions.
- Exhibits an awareness of the audience and purpose.
- Progress through the stages of the writing process as needed.
Writing Applications (Genres and Their Characteristics)
Students:
- Students write narrative, expository, persuasive, and descriptive texts of at least 500 to 700 words in each genre.
- Demonstrates a command of standard American English and the research, organizational, and drafting strategies outlined in the writing standards.
WRITTEN AND ORAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE CONVENTIONS
- Students write and speak with a command of standard English conventions appropriate to fifth grade.
LISTENING AND SPEAKING
Listening and Speaking Strategies
Students:
- Deliver focused, coherent presentations that convey ideas clearly and relate to the background and interests of the audience.
- Evaluate the content of oral communication.
Speaking Applications (Genres and Their Characteristics)
Students:
- Deliver well-organized formal presentations employing traditional rhetorical strategies (e.g., narration, exposition, persuasion, description).
- Demonstrate a command of standard American English and the organizational and delivery strategies outlined in Listening and Speaking standards.
Mathematics
By the end of grade five, students increase their facility with the four basic arithmetic operations applied to fractions, decimals, and positive and negative numbers. They know and use common measuring units to determine length and area and know and use formulas to determine the volume of simple geometric figures. Students know the concept of angle measurement and use a protractor and compass to solve problems. They use grids, tables, graphs, and charts to record and analyze data.
NUMBER SENSE
Students:
- Compute with very large and very small numbers, positive integers, decimals and fractions.
- Understand the relationship between decimals, fractions, and percents.
- Understand the relative magnitudes of numbers.
- Perform calculations and solve problems involving addition, subtraction, and simple multiplication and division of fractions and decimals.
ALGEBRA AND FUNCTIONS
- Students use variables in simple expressions, compute the value of the expression for specific values of the variable, and plot and interpret the results.
MEASUREMENT AND GEOMETRY
Students:
- Understand and compute the volumes and areas of simple objects.
- Identify, describe, and classify the properties of, and the relationships between, plane and solid geometric figures.
STATISTICS, DATA ANALYSIS, AND PROBABILITY
- Students display, analyze, compare, and interpret different data sets, including data sets of different sizes.
MATHEMATICAL REASONING
Students:
- Make decisions about how to approach problems.
- Use strategies, skills, and concepts in finding solutions.
- Move beyond a particular problem by generalizing to other situations.
History-Social Science
UNITED STATES HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY: MAKING A NEW NATION
Students study the development of the nation up to 1850 with an emphasis on the people who were already here, when and from where others arrived, and why they came. Students learn about the colonial government founded on Judeo-Christian principles, the ideals of the Enlightenment, and the English traditions of self-government. They recognize that ours is a nation that has a constitution that derives its power from the people that has gone through a revolution that once sanctioned slavery, that experienced conflict over land with the original inhabitants, and that experienced a westward movement that took its people across the continent. Studying the cause, course, and consequences of the early explorations through the War for Independence and western expansion is central to students’ fundamental understanding of how the principles of the American republic form the basis of a pluralistic society in which individual rights are secured.
Students:
- Describe the major pre-Columbian settlements, including the cliff dwellers and pueblo people of the desert Southwest, the American Indians of the Pacific Northwest , the nomadic nations of the Great Plains , and the woodland peoples east of the Mississippi River .
- Trace the routes of early explorers and describe the early explorations of the Americas .
- Describe the cooperation and conflict that existed among the American Indians and between the Indian nations and the new settlers.
- Understand the political, religious, social, and economic institutions that evolved in the colonial era.
- Explain the causes of the American Revolution.
- Understand the course and consequences of the American Revolution.
- Describe the people and events associated with the development to the U.S. Constitution and analyze the Constitution’s significance as the foundation of the American republic.
- Trace the colonization, immigration, and the settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s, with emphasis on the defining role of economic incentives and the effects of the physical and political geography, and transportation systems.
- Know the location of the current 50 states and the names of their capitals.
Science
PHYSICAL SCIENCES
- Students understand that elements and their combinations account for all the varied types of matter in the world.
LIFE SCIENCES
- Students understand that plants and animals have structures for respiration, digestion, waste disposal, and transport of materials.
EARTH SCIENCES
- Students understand that water on Earth moves between the oceans and land through the processes of evaporation and condensation.
- Energy from the sun heats the Earth unevenly, causing air movements that result in changing weather patterns.
- The solar system consists of planets and other bodies that orbit the sun in predictable paths.
INVESTIGATION AND EXPERIMENTATION
- Students understand that scientific progress is made by asking meaningful questions and conducting careful investigations.
Return to Home Page
Go on to Sixth
Grade