READING

The skills that are covered and reinforced throughout the year are:

• Comprehension--> Understanding and recalling the details
• Main Idea--> Combining the key points from the beginning, middle and end of a passage, article, or book
• Summary--> Connecting important ideas of an article or passage.
• Word Analysis--> Read and decode unfamiliar words
• Oral Fluency--> Understanding punctuation when reading aloud.
• Expression--> Dramatizing the story while reading aloud
• Vocabulary--> Understand word meaning
• Selective Underlining--> Being able to identify the key points of an article or passage

WRITING

• Writing done throughout the school day includes journal writing, writing extensions, descriptive sentences, and paragraph writing.
• Writer's Workshop gives students the opportunity to write expository, persuasive, and narrative essays.
• Grammar and editing are done daily through Daily Oral Language.
  • The focus is on using the correct punctuation, grammar, and spelling in everyday writing.
  • The students are taught to identify nouns, pronouns, verbs, and adjectives.

MATH

The following concepts will be taught throughout the year:

• Adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing whole numbers and decimals.
• Graphing
• Measurement and geometry
• Fractions and mixed numbers
• Ratios, percents, and probability
• Area and volume

SCIENCE

A hands on approach to learning science is used whenever possible. Experiments are used to teach the students the skills of observing, classifying, inferring, predicting, making models, recording data, evaluating and drawing conclusions. We study the four areas of science.  The following units are covered throughout the year.

Life Science:

• Adaptations
• Ecology

Physical Science:

• Classifying Matter
• Investigating Matter
• Forms of Energy

Earth Science:

• Climate
• Astronomy

SOCIAL STUDIES

The fifth grade social studies curriculum focuses on North America's history, beginning with The Age of Early Exploration through to the Civil War.  The following units are covered throughout the year:

• Indians of North America
• The Age of Exploration
• Europeans Settle Throughout North America
• Life in the British Colonies
• The War For Independence
• The Constitution
• Westward Migration
• The Civil War

HEALTH

The following topics will be covered this year:

• Consumer Health
• Nutrition
• Environmental Health
• Drug Awareness
• Safety
• Human Growth and Development