Religion

Grade 5 students explore the Sacraments. The year is broken down into the three categories, Sacraments of Initiation, Sacraments of Healing, and Sacraments of Vocation. Students will continue to study the saints and strive to answer God’s call. Students will practice utilizing the bible to explore the Old and New Testaments. Liturgical seasons and traditions will be highlighted. Students will also participate in weekly liturgies and have various service opportunities throughout the year.

Math

In fifth grade math, we use Sadlier Math 2019. We start off the year by reviewing place value, addition, and subtraction, which we learned from fourth grade. We will use these skills to learn about place value with decimals and how it differs from place value with whole numbers. After place value and decimals, we will work on our multiplication and division facts and skills. These skills will help us to learn about fractions and how to add, subtract, multiply and divide them. We will spend a few chapters on these skills with fractions as they will be relevant in middle school next year. Once we have mastered our skills with fractions, we will work on decimals for the next few chapters. We will learn how to add, subtract, multiply and divide decimals. After we have worked with decimals, we will move right into measurement, geometry, volume, and working with graphs and data. While learning these skills, we utilize technology with videos and interactive computer games. We also use IXL every night to ensure that skills being taught in class are still present while at home. We do individual and group activities to enhance skills being taught. In our classroom, we learn skills that will help to prepare ourselves for middle school skills.

Science

In fifth grade science, we use the Nancy Larson program. This program gives us access to a variety of interactive videos, activities, and tools to learn about each topic. We start off this program by exploring the universe and all of the parts that make up the universe. After astronomy, we will break down chemistry and work on structure of matter and investigating matter’s interactions. When we have finished chemistry, we will learn about the Earth’s systems and different life cycles of the Earth. We will then learn about forces and motion as well as tools and machines. Our science program will provide students with their own booklets for them to work in and do activities. These booklets will have charts for students to fill in as well as different activities. We focus on key words and make sure we define them and highlight them in our books.

Vocabulary

Sadlier Vocabulary Workshop program uses a variety of tools to implement new terms into student’s vocabulary. Each unit (18 total) begins with a passage that introduces the new terms and how they are used and what they sound like. Other activities include synonyms and antonyms, matching definitions, pronunciation, parts of speech and how they are used in sentences. Each unit also helps students build vocabulary beyond the unit words such as learning word parts (prefixes and suffixes and roots to decode unknown words) as well as learning different meanings of figurative language such as idioms, proverbs, similes and metaphors.

Grammar

In Voyages in English, students learn a multitude of different ways of understanding grammar and writing. This includes analyzing, arguing, and applying methods of effective communication. Students learn a total of eight chapters with each chapter divided into eleven lessons. These lessons include nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions – conjunctions - interjections, sentences, and punctuation/capitalization. Bonus chapters also include multiple writing techniques such as: personal narratives, How-to articles, business letters, descriptions, book reports, creative writing, persuasive writing, and research reports.

Reading

The HMH Into Reading curriculum builds students’ understanding of academic vocabulary and real-world topics by using critical/strategic thinking and reading skills. Each module teaches students how to recognize and use citing text evidence, genre characteristics as well as increasing knowledge in various content areas to build/make meaning of the readings. Each Module is organized into central ideas and questions with five readings in each module. Central ideas for each module in fifth grade are: Inventors at work, What a story, Natural Disasters, Wild West, and Project Earth. Each story also ends with collaborative discussion questions as well as short writing exercises. Students complete summative essays at the end of each module by using the information and knowledge that they learned and apply those skills into writing assignments.

Social Studies

Each Chapter begins with the Big Questions where students are introduced to the topic, grounded in the instruction, and encouraged to draw upon and apply previous knowledge. A Jumpstart activity is designed to activate the topic at the opener in fun and engaging ways. Finally, the Sing/Rap about it feature introduces students to chapter vocabulary in the form of a song or rap. The Quest activity is an inquiry project that takes place over the course of the entire chapter. Students are presented with a real-world problem & students apply their knowledge and demonstrate their understanding in a final project (essay, discussion, presentation, physical/digital product. Reading checks are also provided to check for understanding of what was previously read, content vocabulary as well as increasing word skills, writing skills, Map and graph skills, critical thinking skills and literacy skills lessons in which students apply and demonstrate their learning. Specific areas learned are: The first Americans, Age of Exploration, Settling the Colonies in North America, Life in the Colonies, the American Revolution, A New Nation, Life in the Young Republic, Westward Expansion, Civil War and Reconstruction.