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5th Grade

Students in 5th grade spend the year acquiring skills needed for Middle School while revising skills taught in the earlier grades. They will continue to build organizational and time management skills while focusing on increasingly difficult academic assignments.

In English/Language Arts, students will read significantly more difficult texts than in previous grades while focusing on crucial literary elements. They will also begin to write with more structure including short papers they develop using their research skills and organizing and editing their writing effectively.

In Math, students will work with larger, more complex numbers and concepts. Many of the math skills will be connected to real-world problem solving including time, money and measurement.

The 5th grade core courses include; English Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, and Science.  In English/Language Arts we currently use the Reading Street curriculum by Savvas. Our math curriculum is McGraw Hill, My Math and our science curriculum is Interactive Science by Pearson. Our core curriculum is implemented along with an enriched and unique Arabic and Islamic Studies program guided by experienced instructors. 

Objectives/ Alabama State Standards

English/Language Arts

Phonics

  • Apply phonics and word analysis skills to encode and decode words in grade-level texts. 
  • Use combined knowledge of letter-sound correspondences, appropriate blending, syllabication patterns, morphology, and word attack skills to read unfamiliar multisyllabic, grade-level words accurately in context and in isolation. 
  • Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.
  • Write familiar and unfamiliar multisyllabic, grade-level appropriate words accurately in context and in isolation. 

Fluency

  • Demonstrate fluency when independently reading, writing, and speaking in response to grade-level literary and informational text, including stories, dramas, poetry, and cross-curricular texts. 
  • Read grade-level text orally with accuracy, automaticity, appropriate prosody or expression, purpose, and understanding, self-correcting and rereading as necessary. 
  • Write routinely and independently for varied amounts of time. 
  • Orally present information and original ideas clearly.
  • Express ideas clearly and effectively to diverse partners or groups. 
  • Respond directly to specific information shared by others in classroom discussion, using facts to support the ideas being discussed. a. Review the key ideas expressed and draw conclusions in light of information and knowledge gained from discussion. 

Vocabulary 

  • Acquire and use grade-level vocabulary, clarifying the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases in text, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies. 
  • Interpret the meaning of words, phrases, and patterns as they are used in texts, including domain-specific and academic vocabulary and figurative language. 
  • Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases. 
  • Write using grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific words and phrases accurately, including those that signal contrasting ideas, additional information, and other logical relationships. 
  • Use grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific words and phrases during presentations and discussion. 

Comprehension

  • Demonstrate comprehension of varied literary and informational texts by utilizing its content when discussing or writing in response to the text. 
  • Demonstrate comprehension of text by asking and responding to questions about literary elements used in the text. Examples: theme, plot, point of view 
  • Explain the relationships among events, people, or concepts in informational texts, supported by textual evidence. 
  • Interpret how authors use literary elements throughout a text, including character, setting, conflict, dialogue, and point of view. 
  • Explain how the author’s use of character types throughout a narrative helps drive its plot. 
  • Compare and contrast characters, points of view, or events in two or more literary texts. 
  • Determine the implied and/or explicit main idea in literary and informational texts. Determine and analyze themes of various culturally-diverse literary texts, supporting analysis with textual evidence. 
  • Determine and evaluate the effectiveness of digital and print text features and structures, including comparison and contrast, problem and solution, and cause and effect.
  • Determine credibility and appropriateness of a research source by distinguishing between fact and the author’s opinion in informational text. 
  • Analyze how two or more texts address similar topics in diverse media and formats, including graphics, live and/or recorded performances, and written works.
  • Review the key ideas expressed in a text and draw conclusions, using facts to support them.
  • Use audio and/or visual sources of information to obtain the answer to a question. 
  • Summarize in writing a variety of texts, stating their implied and/or explicit main ideas
  • Quote literary and informational texts accurately to support conclusions and inferences drawn from them. 
  • Include multimedia components and visual displays in presentations to enhance the development of main ideas or themes when appropriate.

Writing

  • Respond in writing to literature and informational text, including stories, dramas, poetry, and cross-curricular texts, independently and with grade-level proficiency. 
  • Write fluently and legibly in cursive, using correctly formed letters with appropriate spacing and placing text elements correctly on the page. 
  • Write personal or fictional narratives incorporating literary elements (characters, plot, setting, conflict), dialogue, strong voice, and clear event sequences. 
  • Write informative or explanatory texts using multiple sources to examine a topic, conveying ideas and information clearly and incorporating a strong organizational structure, relevant details, and elaboration. 
  • Write an argument to persuade the reader to take an action or adopt a position, stating a claim, supporting the claim with relevant evidence from sources, using connectives to link ideas, and presenting a strong conclusion. Examples: first, as a result, therefore, in addition 
  • Write about research findings independently over short and/or extended periods of time. 
  • Gather information on a topic or question, and share the results through various modes of writing, including projects and presentations. 
  • Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage in writing.
  • Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing. 
  • Write using grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific words and phrases accurately, including those that signal contrasting ideas, additional information, and other logical relationships. 
  • Consult print and digital reference materials to find the pronunciation and to determine or clarify the precise meaning of key words and phrases. 

Science

Matter and Its Interactions

  • Plan and carry out investigations to provide evidence that matter is made of particles too small to be seen. 
  • Investigate matter to provide mathematical evidence, including graphs, to show that regardless of the type of reaction or change that occurs when heating, cooling, or mixing substances, the total weight of the matter is conserved. 
  • Examine matter through observations and measurements to identify materials ( based on their properties 
  • Investigate whether the mixing of two or more substances results in new substances 
  • Construct explanations from observations to determine how the density of an object affects whether the object sinks or floats when placed in a liquid.

Motion and Stability: Forces and Interactions

  • Construct an explanation from evidence to illustrate that the gravitational force exerted by Earth on objects is directed downward towards the center of Earth.
  •  Design and conduct a test to modify the speed of a falling object due to gravity.

Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics

  • Defend the position that plants obtain materials needed for growth primarily from air and water.
  • Construct an illustration to explain how plants use light energy to convert carbon dioxide and water into a storable fuel, carbohydrates, and a waste product, oxygen, during the process of photosynthesis. 
  • Construct and interpret models (e.g., diagrams, flow charts) to explain that energy in animals’ food is used for body repair, growth, motion, and maintenance of body warmth and was once energy from the sun. 
  • Create a model to illustrate the transfer of matter among producers; consumers, including scavengers and decomposers; and the environment.

Earth’s Place in the Universe

  • Defend the claim that one factor determining the apparent brightness of the sun compared to other stars is the relative distance from Earth. 
  • Analyze data and represent with graphs to reveal patterns of daily changes in length and direction of shadows, day and night, and the seasonal appearance of some stars in the night sky. 

Earth’s Systems

  • Use a model to represent how any two systems, specifically the atmosphere, biosphere, geosphere, and/or hydrosphere, interact and support life 
  • Identify the distribution of freshwater and saltwater on Earth and construct a graphical representation depicting the amounts and percentages found in different reservoirs.

Earth and Human Activity

  • Collect and organize scientific ideas that individuals and communities can use to protect Earth’s natural resources and its environment
  • Design solutions, test, and revise a process for cleaning a polluted environment. 

Social Studies

  • Locate on a map physical features that impacted the exploration and settlement of the Americas, including ocean currents, prevailing winds, large forests, major rivers, and significant mountain ranges.   
  • Identify causes and effects of early migration and settlement of North America.  
  • Distinguish differences among major American Indian cultures in North America according to geographic region, natural resources, community organization, economy, and belief systems.     
  • Determine the economic and cultural impact of European exploration during the Age of Discovery upon European society and American Indians. 
  • Explain the early colonization of North America and reasons for settlement in the Northern, Middle, and Southern colonies, including geographic features, landforms, and differences in climate among the colonies.  
  • Describe colonial economic life and labor systems in the Americas. 
  • Determine causes and events leading to the American Revolution, including the French and Indian War, the Stamp Act, the Intolerable Acts, the Boston Massacre, and the Boston Tea Party.   
  • Identify major events of the American Revolution, including the battles of Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, Saratoga, and Yorktown.
  • Explain how inadequacies of the Articles of Confederation led to the creation and eventual ratification of the Constitution of the United States.
  • Describe political, social, and economic events between 1803 and 1860 that led to the expansion of the territory of the United States, including the War of 1812, the Indian Removal Act, the Texas-Mexican War, the MexicanAmerican War, and the Gold Rush of 1849.   
  • Identify causes of the Civil War, including states’ rights and the issue of slavery. 
  • Summarize successes and failures of the Reconstruction Era. 
  • Describe social and economic influences on thr United States’ expansion prior to World War I.