Fifth Grade

“Fifth graders demonstrate a willingness to take a position of leadership in the school, and have a corresponding sense of pride in achievements, both academic and social. They show sensitivity toward how students are treated by their peers. Fifth grade students take a more mature approach to reading; for example, finding a particular author or genre to be of interest. They also have a growing ability to handle assignments with more independence.” ~~ Maureen Meyer, Loomis Elementary School

Language Arts

Themes: Teamwork & Friendship, Changing Planet & Nature, Independence & Survival, American Experience, Mysteries

• Learning to read independently
• Preview text (title, headings, chapters, cover, table of contents) to set a purpose for reading, recognize author’s purpose and make predictions
• Use sight word vocabulary
• Use initial, medial, and final sounds, short and long vowel sounds, and syllabication rules to decode new words
• Use context to understand new words and text meaning
• Recognize, use and understand the meaning of key vocabulary
• Reread to self-correct miscues
• Demonstrate use of comprehension strategies
• Demonstrate fluency
• Reading Critically
• Read and understand informational text and documents in all content areas
• Differentiate fact from opinion within and across texts
• Identify stereotypes and exaggeration
• Distinguish between essential and nonessential information
• Identify text structures, including cause/effect, problem/solution, comparison/contrast
• Evaluate author’s purpose and effectiveness, and the effectiveness of a variety of media
• Analyzing & Interpreting Literature
• Identify and read a variety of genres and types of text
• Identify literary elements (events, characters, setting, problem, solution)
• Identify literary devices (rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, simile, metaphor, personification)
• Compare use of literary elements and devices by various authors
• Identify and interpret the effects of sound and structure in poetry
• Identify and explain the structures of drama
• Analyze drama as a source of information, persuasion, or transmitter of culture
• Types and Quality of Writing
• Write with a clear focus, identifying topic, purpose and audience
• Write using content appropriate to topic
• Write with logical organization
• Write multi-paragraph piece using appropriate transitions
• Write with sense of style (varied sentence length, type; good word choice)
• Spell frequently used words correctly
• Use capital letters and punctuation marks correctly
• Use nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions correctly
• Write in complete sentences including simple and compound combinations
• Learning to Learn
• Discuss, locate and limit topics of interest for research
• Locate appropriate resources for a task
• Gather, organize and select the most effective information appropriate for the topic, task and audience
• Use traditional and electronic resources
• Credit sources using a structured format
• Describe appropriate listening, speaking and turn-taking behaviors
• Exhibit persistence in completing tasks
• Follow classroom rules
• Strive for accuracy
• Exhibit cultural sensitivity
• Exhibit flexibility in thinking and planning
• Remain positive and open to continuous learning

Social Studies

“American History to 1800” Beginning with the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas and European exploration, fifth graders study the events of American history to the year 1800. Along with people and events, students learn about the role of geography and economics in history and study the history of government in America as well.

Students in the fifth grade study the following Social Studies units:

• Geography
• Pre-Columbian America
• Exploration
• Colonization
• the Revolution
• the Constitution

Science

“Microworlds”Microworlds is an eight-week, 16 lesson unit. The primary objectives are:

• For students to learn how to observe.
• For students to learn how to record their observations, using both writing and drawing.
• For students to learn about the properties of magnifiers.
• For students to become skilled at using hand lenses.
• For students to become skilled at using microscopes, slides, coverslips, droppers and other related apparatus.
• For students to observe a wide variety of specimens, both living and nonliving, under magnification.

“Organisms” In this unit, students explore the web of relationships that link organisms to each other and to their natural environment. From their experiences, they develop an understanding of the following science concepts:

• An ecosystem is a community of organisms and its interaction with its environment.
• Organisms can be categorized by the functions they serve in an ecosystem: producers, consumers, or decomposers.
• Organisms in an ecosystem have dependent and independent relationships, which can be illustrated by food webs.
• Factors that affect growth and reproduction of organisms in an ecosystem include light, water, temperature, and soil.
• Natural and human-made events can “disturb” an ecosystem.
• A pollutant is anything that can harm living organisms when too much of it is released into an ecosystem. Pollution is the condition that results when pollutants interact with the environment.
• Pollutants can affect the stability of an ecosystem; solutions can help minimize or alleviate the effects of pollution.
• Model ecosystems can be used to learn more about the complex relationships that exist on earth.

“Floating and Sinking” In this unit, students investigate the phenomenon of buoyancy. From their experiences, they are introduced to the following concepts:

• Several variables affect the buoyancy of an object.
• Water pushes up on both floating and submerged objects with a buoyant; objects push down on the water.
• The buoyant force on large objects is greater than the buoyant force on smaller objects.
• The amount of water an object displaces is directly related to the object’s volume.
• Because of buoyant force, objects appear to weigh less when they are submerged.
• Objects that weigh more than the same volume of water sink; objects that weigh less than the same volume of water float.
• Salt water weighs more than an equal amount of fresh water.
• The buoyancy of an object varies with the density of the liquid.

Mathematics

The focus of Level 5 Mathematics is the mastery of computation with decimals and fractions. Other important topics studied are

• Geometry
• Measurement
• Statistics
• Probability
• Problem solving strategies