Overview

5^th grade is a very exciting year, most children are starting to realize who they are and who they want to become. It is a year when most children realize the effort they need to put into their education to achieve their most challenging goals. The central theme carried out in 5^th grade is tolerance. Through our curriculum we focus on appreciation for various people, understanding others’ ideas, and realizing each others’ differences. Below is a list of each 5^th grade subject and a brief overview of our curriculum.

Language Arts

Reading

This is a subject where we really focus and spend most of our time. We continue to emphasize comprehension, while taking it a step forward and really learning how to criticize and analyze.

Text Book: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt – Journeys

Reading Program: Accelerated Reader (see attached Information)

English

This is a very important subject that takes us from nouns, to verbs, to adjectives and more! In 5^th grade we focus on sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, and Capitalization.

Text Book: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt – Journeys

Writing

Along with Reading , Writing is another central focus in 5^th grade. We really concentrate on organization and finding a focus in our writing. As you will see below, we do at least one writing activity in every subject.

Writing Program: Writing Traits

Major Writing Projects in Language Arts: Personal Narrative, Persuasive Essay, and Research Report.

Spelling

Through this subject we focus on word recognition, vocabulary, and concept development. Each child is expected to take a Spelling Pre-test every Monday morning. On the following Friday they will be tested. At this level they are expected to spell the word and memorize a definition for each word (they are given definitions at the beginning of the week).

Religion

In this subject we are recognizing and learning Scriptures that pertain to our sacraments. We dig into each sacrament finding it’s true meaning, signs, and symbols. We also focus on our Catholic Faith, this includes acknowledging attitudes, actions, and moral decisions. At this level the children begin to become aware of the need for reaching out to other people and showing positive actions.

Text Book – Christ Our Life   – www.christourlife.com

Projects: Contemporary Stations of the Cross

Math

In this subject there is a focus on Number Sense (estimating, identifying place value, identifying prime and composite numbers, the least/greatest common multiple, word problems, fractions, etc). We also learn basic Algebra and Functions (equations, coordinates, linear functions, graphs, etc). And finally we learn and understand Measurement, Basic Geometry, Statistics, Probability, and Mathematical Reasoning.

Social Studies

5th grade is a VERY important year when discussing History. Together as a 5th grade class we investigate, analyze, and question what made explorers come to our great continent, what technology they used, and who in the end won what we call our home, The United States of America!!! We also analyze and discuss what happen during the colonial time, the events that lead to the Revolutionary War, and eventually how we wrote the Declaration of Independence.

Projects: Explorer Project, 50 States Test, State Oral Report.

Science

In this subject we are taken through 3 major units. We look at Physical Science to learn different elements and how their combinations account for all the varied types of matter in the world. We also learn about Life Science, examining plants and animals and our human bodies. We focus on their structures for respiration, digestion, waste disposal, and transporting of materials. Finally we look into Earth Science which includes water on Earth, properties of rocks and minerals, and our Solar System.

Text Book: Discovery Works

Projects:   Solar System and Star Constellation

Accelerated Reader Program

Overview

Accelerated Reader is a program that was developed from Renaissance Learning to accelerate growth in reading ability, foster a love of reading in all students, develop lifelong learners and critical thinkers, and to improve test scores.

What is Accelerated Reader?

A software program that helps motivate, monitor, and manage student reading practice.

Purpose

As you know reading skills are the most important skills we use throughout our lives. It is my goal to develop these students reading skills, as it affects every aspect of education. With this program we will spend about a half an hour a day silently reading. This will give me time to work with students individually, give immediate feedback, and monitor reading comprehension.

How it will work?

The students will be given a chart and a reading plan (each student has one so please feel free to look at it). On their reading plan they will be given a suggested reading level and a certain amount of points they have to reach within a six-week period. Every morning we will be silently reading for 30 minutes, allowing me to go around and work with students individually to monitor reading skills and comprehension.

This reading is to  be done in class and at home.

We are fortunate enough to have an incredible amount of Accelerated Reading books in the library, all of which have reading levels and points that your child understands. After they complete a book they will take a computerized test to evaluate their comprehension level. Every six weeks those test scores will be averaged and it will go into their reading grade. At that time I will send home their reading plan for a parent signature so you can see how they did and how they scored.

This program has an unbelievable success rate and I am very excited to be able to implement it with this class. If you have any questions please feel free to ask. Accelerated Reader is somewhat hard to explain through a letter, but I wanted to at least make you aware of this. Like I said at the beginning, we have gone over this in class and the students understand it so feel free to have them explain it to you also.

IN-CLASS READING LIST

Here are books we will read and enjoy throughout the school year. Scroll down to view the complete list.
Summer Reading:
The Cricket in Times Square