Welcome to Fifth Grade

In Grade 5 English Language Arts, students refine and master previously learned knowledge and skills in increasingly complex presentations, reading selections, and written compositions. Fifth grade students can identify a speaker's persuasive technique such as promises, dares, and flattery in presentations. Students read from classic and contemporary selections and informational text. Fifth grade students are able to judge the internal consistency or logic of stories and texts. Students recognize the way an author organizes information and engage in more sophisticated analysis of characters, plots, and settings. Fifth grade students are able to select and use different forms of writing for specific purposes such as to inform, persuade, or entertain. Students vary sentence structure and use conjunctions to connect ideas. Students are able to use literary devices such as suspense, dialogue, and figurative language in their writing. Fifth grade students edit their writing based on their knowledge of grammar and usage, spelling, punctuation, and other conventions of written language. Students produce final, error-free pieces of written composition on a regular basis. Fifth grade students search out multiple texts to complete research reports or projects. Students use visuals to support their research projects.
 
5th grade math:
(1) Within a well-balanced mathematics curriculum, the primary focal points at Grade 5 are comparing and contrasting lengths, areas, and volumes of two- or three-dimensional geometric figures; representing and interpreting data in graphs, charts, and tables; and applying whole number operations in a variety of contexts.
 
(2) Throughout mathematics in Grades 3-5, students build a foundation of basic understandings in number, operation, and quantitative reasoning; patterns, relationships, and algebraic thinking; geometry and spatial reasoning; measurement; and probability and statistics. Students use algorithms for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division as generalizations connected to concrete experiences; and they concretely develop basic concepts of fractions and decimals. Students use appropriate language and organizational structures such as tables and charts to represent and communicate relationships, make predictions, and solve problems. Students select and use formal language to describe their reasoning as they identify, compare, and classify two- or three-dimensional geometric figures; and they use numbers, standard units, and measurement tools to describe and compare objects, make estimates, and solve application problems. Students organize data, choose an appropriate method to display the data, and interpret the data to make decisions and predictions and solve problems.
 
(3) Throughout mathematics in Grades 3-5, students develop numerical fluency with conceptual understanding and computational accuracy. Students in Grades 3-5 use knowledge of the base-ten place value system to compose and decompose numbers in order to solve problems requiring precision, estimation, and reasonableness. By the end of Grade 5, students know basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts and are using them to work flexibly, efficiently, and accurately with numbers during addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division computation.
 
(4) Problem solving, language and communication, connections within and outside mathematics, and formal and informal reasoning underlie all content areas in mathematics. Throughout mathematics in Grades 3-5, students use these processes together with technology and other mathematical tools such as manipulative materials to develop conceptual understanding and solve meaningful problems as they do mathematics.
 
5th Grade Science:
1) In Grade 5, the study of science includes planning and implementing field and laboratory investigations using scientific methods, analyzing information, making informed decisions, and using tools such as nets and cameras to collect and record information. Students also use computers and information technology tools to support scientific investigations.
 
(2) As students learn science skills, they identify structures and functions of Earth systems including the crust, mantle, and core and the effect of weathering on landforms. Students learn that growth, erosion, and dissolving are examples of how some past events have affected present events. Students learn about magnetism, physical states of matter, and conductivity as properties that are used to classify matter. In addition, students learn that light, heat, and electricity are all forms of energy.
 
(3) Students learn that adaptations can improve the survival of members of a species, and they explore an organism's niche within an ecosystem. Students continue the study of organisms by exploring a variety of traits that are inherited by offspring from their parents and study examples of learned characteristics.
 
(4) Science is a way of learning about the natural world. Students should know how science has built a vast body of changing and increasing knowledge described by physical, mathematical, and conceptual models, and also should know that science may not answer all questions.
 
(5) A system is a collection of cycles, structures, and processes that interact. Students should understand a whole in terms of its components and how these components relate to each other and to the whole. All systems have basic properties that can be described in terms of space, time, energy, and matter. Change and constancy occur in systems and can be observed and measured as patterns. These patterns help to predict what will happen next and can change over time.
 
(6) Investigations are used to learn about the natural world. Students should understand that certain types of questions can be answered by investigations, and that methods, models, and conclusions built from these investigations change as new observations are made. Models of objects and events are tools for understanding the natural world and can show how systems work. They have limitations and based on new discoveries are constantly being modified to more closely reflect the natural world.