Fifth Grade Curriculum

The elementary visual arts curriculum helps students understand how media, technique and process are used to create works of art; how artworks are structured; how art has a variety of functions; how to identify, analyze and select subject matter, symbols and ideas for personal/cultural expression; how historical and cultural contexts provide meaning for works of art, and how to assess the merits of their own artworks and the artworks of others.

Resources
Adventures in Art, Davis

Topics

• Using media through multi-stepped techniques, problem-solving and planned experiments
• Effectiveness of choice of media and techniques to communicate intended ideas
• How characteristics of media and techniques communicate meaning in art around the world
• Visual structures of contrast, repetition, emphasis, movement, rhythm, illusions of depth, harmony and balance
• The functions of art (decorative, expressive, practical and persuasive)
• Using the elements and principles of design to communicate intended ideas
• Critiquing own artwork in terms of effective communication of intended ideas
• Drawing from sources (such as experiences, trends in the news media or concepts in other subject areas for themes) to incorporate into artwork
• Identifying and using subjects, themes and symbols in artworks
• How cultural contexts, values and aesthetics influence the meaning of artworks
• Subjects, themes and symbols of artwork from different cultures and eras
• The meaning of an artwork within its historical and cultural context
• Responding to other students' artworks in a clear and organized manner

Guidance

Guidance, which is integrated into other curriculum areas, helps establish goals, expectations, support systems and experience for all students. It is designed to enhance student learning by helping students acquire and use lifelong learning skills in three broad areas of development: academic, career and personal/social. The curriculum employs developmentally appropriate strategies to enhance academics, provide career awareness, encourage self-awareness, foster interpersonal communication skills and convey life success skills for all students. The guidance and health curricula complement each other to provide knowledge and skills in the area of drug prevention.

Resources
Variety of district-selected materials

Topics
Students will acquire knowledge and skills in the following areas:

• Improved academic self-concept
• Improved learning
• Plan to achieve goals
• School success
• Career awareness
• Organization and time management
• Self-knowledge
• Interpersonal relations
• Personal safety

Students learn to take responsibility for aspects of their health. Healthful decision-making is emphasized. Topics introduced in the early years are reviewed and discussed in more depth, along with new topics. The (D.A.R.E. Program) Drug Abuse Resistance Education brings a uniformed police officer into the classroom to help students understand laws and issues surrounding drugs, develop skills to say no to drugs and alcohol, and discuss the consequences and alternatives to these chemicals. The human growth and development curriculum covers basic information about reproductive anatomy, physical and emotional changes during puberty, and proper hygiene. Parents are invited to attend one of several evening sessions to experience the program with their child. The health and guidance curricula complement each other to provide knowledge and skills in the area of drug prevention.

Resources
Your Health, Harcourt, Inc.
Just Around the Corner for Girls/Boys, March Productions
D.A.R.E.

Topics
Mental/Emotional

• Communication skills
• Managing emotion
• Managing stress
• Managing grief
• Conflict resolution
• Time management

Social

• Decision-making
• Peer pressure
• Respecting differences

Chemical Health

• Responsible drug use
• Drug abuse
• Staying drug free
• Alcohol
• Smokeless tobacco
• Second-hand smoke

Safety

• Amusement park safety
• Equipment safety
• Bike/pedestrian safety
• Bus safety
• Severe weather safety
• Fire safety
• Intruder safety
• Violence prevention
• Internet safety

First Aid

• Injuries
• Hazards
• Emergencies
• First aid steps

Growth & Development

• Changes associated with puberty and the opposite gender
• Hygiene
• Reproductive systems

Communicable/Chronic Disease

• Pathogens
• Stages of a disease
• Body defenses
• Identification and causes of communicable diseases
• HIV/AIDS

Consumer Health

• Influence of advertisements
• Wise consumer choices
• Consumer protection agencies

Decision-Making

• Choosing healthy behaviors (decision-making model)
• Reinforcing healthy decisions (refusal skills)

Language Arts

Reading, writing, listening, speaking, spelling and handwriting are all-important components of language arts.  Skills and strategies in each area are modeled, taught and practiced, taking into account the unique needs of each learner.  Knowledge and skills are acquired through connected experiences between home, school and community.  Students read from a variety of texts, including fiction (short stories and whole books), poetry and nonfiction (textbooks, newspapers and magazines).  Students read (or are read to) and write daily.

Resources

• Guided Reading Resources
• Classroom Libraries
• Invitations to Literacy, Houghton Mifflin
• Word Study-District developed
• Handwriting – Zaner-Bloser

Topics

Reading

• Fiction and nonfiction materials
• Improving and expanding vocabulary
• Distinguishing between fact and opinion
• Understanding ideas not explicitly stated
• Interpreting figurative language
• Using graphophonic (sounds), syntactic (language) and semantic (meaning) strategies to understand text

Writing

• Planning, composing and revising pieces of writing
• Editing for grammar, capitalization, punctuation, spelling and sentence structure
• Narrative, persuasive, descriptive and expository essays
• A business letter to request an action

Speaking and Listening

• Summarizing ideas and information from visual presentations
• Planning and carrying out an event in a small group
• Listening to and discussing first-hand experiences
• Predicting, comparing and analyzing what has been heard

Word Study (includes spelling, language and vocabulary development)

• Finding the correct spelling of an unknown word
• Patterns within words
• Spelling frequently used words correctly in everyday writing
• Vocabulary development

Handwriting

• Cursive writing

While connecting mathematical experiences to the world around them, young children are challenged to become increasingly sophisticated in dealing with mathematical concepts. The elementary mathematics curriculum builds on students' math understanding, skills, and proficiency at each grade level, as appropriate, by integrating concepts such as number and operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, and data analysis and probability. Students also engage in problem solving, reasoning, and communicating ideas while making connections to the world around them.

Resources
Scott Foresman/Addison Wesley Mathematics
Investigations in Number, Data, and Space - Dale Seymour Publishers

Topics

NUMBERS AND OPERATIONS - Understanding of and proficiency with counting, numbers and arithmetic, as well as an understanding of number systems and their structures

• Place value
• Multiplication and division
• Computational fluency
• Increased understanding of base-ten number system
• Fractions, decimals and percents
• Numbers less than zero

ALGEBRA - Relationships among quantities, including ways of representing mathematical relationships and expression of relationships by using symbolic notation

• Identify, build and represent numerical and geometric patterns with tables or symbols
• Make predictions based on relationships between varying quantities
• Use graphs to describe patterns and make predictions
• Explore number properties
• Use invented notation, standard symbols and variables to express a pattern, generalization or situation

GEOMETRY - Geometric shapes and structures, and how to analyze their characteristics and relationships

• Properties and classification of geometric objects
• Relationships between geometric shapes
• Motion, location and orientation
• Increase capacity to visualize geometric relationships
• Make, test and justify conjectures about geometric relationships

MEASUREMENT - The assignment of a numerical value to an attribute of an object; understanding what a measurable attribute is, becoming familiar with the units and processes used in measuring attributes

• Use concepts and tools of measurement to collect data, and to describe and quantify the world
• Measure attributes such as area, perimeter and angle
• Increase focus on degree of accuracy and variety of measurement tools
• Begin to develop and use formulas for the measurement of certain attributes

DATA ANALYSIS AND PROBABILITY - How to collect, organize and display data in graphs and charts that will be useful in answering questions; methods of analyzing data, and of making inferences and conclusions from data

• See a set of data as a whole, describe its shape and compare data sets
• Describe similarities and differences between data sets
• Formulate conclusions and arguments based on data
• Consider data sets as samples from a larger population
• Use language and symbols to describe simple situations involving probability

PROBLEM SOLVING - Engaging in a task for which the solution method is not known in advance

• Solve problems that arise in mathematics and other contexts
• Apply and adapt a variety of appropriate strategies to solve problems
• Monitor and reflect on the process of mathematical problem solving
• Develop and carry out plans to solve mathematical problems

The music program focuses on making music, and listening to and responding to music others have produced. Students sing, play instruments, move and create music. They learn to read music, and analyze and evaluate the music of others.

Resource
Making Music, Silver Burdett

Topics

• Distinguishing between major and minor tonalities
• Reading musical notation using the diatonic scale
• Singing two-part songs
• Performing rhythmic and melodic, harmonic patterns on classroom instruments
• Improvising accompaniments using classroom instruments, voice or both
• Identifying different vocal parts aurally
• Performing more complex rhythms and using compound time signatures
• Identifying symphonic form

Band
In band, students study instrumental music. Through the development of instrumental techniques, ensemble skills, theory and history studies, students learn to appreciate music and become able to express music appropriate for their developmental level.

Physical education is based on learning basic movements and skills and refining these movements and skills into specific activities. Skills include locomotor movement, non-locomotor movement, perceptual movement and manipulatives. The movements and skills are incorporated into game situations. Examples of the core units are basketball, bowling, floor hockey, tumbling and stunts, rhythms, soccer, softball, touch/flag football, track & field, volleyball and fitness.

Topics

• Physical activities that develop motor skills and physical fitness
• Rules, skills, strategies and team-building associated with individual and team activities
• Age-appropriate physical fitness
• Safety and etiquette in physical activities

The curriculum provides opportunities for students to learn science concepts through hands-on activities. Students learn to observe, compare, collect data, organize and analyze information, and communicate what they have learned. The investigations focus on physical, earth, life science and scientific reasoning concepts.

Resources
Full Option Science System (FOSS) kits

Topics
Mixtures and Solutions (physical science)

• Solids and liquids
• Interactions that result from experiments with solutions

Environments (life science)

• Data from cause and effect experiments and investigations with plants
• Data from cause and effect experiments and investigations with animals

Landforms (earth science)

• Using stream tables to investigate the variables that influence erosion and deposition of earth materials, and the subsequent creation of landforms
• The effects of different amounts of water on erosion
• The effects of steepness of slope on erosion
• Maps and models of different land forms

Variables (scientific reasoning)

• Relationships between independent and dependent variables, and predictions
• Conducting a controlled experiment using one variable and organizing the data gathered
• Variables that affect the outcome of an experiment

The social studies curriculum provides the opportunity for each student to acquire knowledge and develop skills necessary for social, political and economic participation in a diverse, interdependent and changing world.

Resources
District-developed units of study
Exploring Our World Past and Present, D.C. Heath
District-selected biographies

Topics
Introduction to Historical and Geographic Thought

• Describing historical events using the five W's - who, what, where, when and why
• Organizing historical events sequentially using a timeline
• Locating, organizing and presenting information
• Reconstructing an historical account of an event using primary and secondary sources

The Ancient World

• Differences between hunters/gatherers and farmers
• Characteristics of culture and examples of the components of a specific civilization
• Locating, organizing and presenting information
• Contributions of ancient civilizations to their own time and the modern world
• Describing a past event from the point of view of a local community member
• Examples of conflict, cooperation and interdependence among individuals, groups and nations

European History to the 15th Century

• Factors that contributed to the decline, restoration and enhancement of civilization during the Middle Ages and Renaissance
• How technology has changed peoples' lives in home, work, transportation and communication
• Locating, organizing and presenting information

Europe Today

• Maps, globes, charts, graphs and tables
• Geographic terms, symbols and places
• Understanding current events