LANGUAGE ARTS
Fifth graders become more independent, sophisticated readers.
As their skills and experience increase, they will have the confidence to take on literature and nonfiction texts that broaden their reading experiences significantly. The teacher facilitates their continued growth as readers by designing appropriate reading assignments, organizing literature circles, and facilitating discussions of texts.
Fifth Graders will…
Continue to receive direct instruction in reading by working individually with teachers.
Be provided with opportunities to read for pleasure and for information.
Continue to build their vocabularies and increase the number of words they recognize.
Use this developed knowledge to find the meanings of new, unfamiliar words in addition to the use of dictionaries or encyclopedias.
React to what they have read through active discussions, written reflections, and through projects of choice.
Use a Language Arts journal to log their written responses to texts read in the classroom.
Write for multiple purposes throughout the year.
Write stories, informational compositions, letters, and extensions of literature studied in the classroom.
Learn to self-edit as well as serve as a peer-editor for their classmates.
MATHEMATICS
Cornerstone uses the Primary Mathematics curriculum. This curriculum is based on the Singapore Math curriculum and honors students’ thinking and ideas more than teaching a certain way to solve problems in math. Students will be given problems to engage with that can be attached to a real-world context to deepen understanding.
Fifth graders will work with:
Whole numbers into the billions through multiple different concepts.
Using fractions and decimals in calculation.
Engage in geometric concepts like angles, area, surface area, and perimeter.
Percents, ratios, averages and rates, and other forms of data analysis.
SOCIAL STUDIES
Fifth graders learn about the history of the southeastern region of the United States through the lens of marginalized people.
Much of the focus throughout the year is:
On the history of the slave trade in the Americas.
Life on plantations.
The Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement, and how these relate to and/or affect current events in our region, country, and world.
Spending time with maps and atlases on a regular basis.
Develop maps of their own creation.
These studies are culminated each year with a tour of the southeast with a focus on the Civil Rights Movement that includes time in Selma, Alabama, Montgomery, Alabama, Tuskegee University, and Atlanta, Georgia. The focus of this trip is to see, smell, feel, and experience some significant historical locations that the students have learned about throughout the year.
SCIENCE
Everything is a part of and necessary to a larger whole. Topics of investigation in 5th grade include:
The nature of matter, energy and force and motion.
Using models and the scientific method to study and explain the process of nature.
Exploring and experimenting begin with a unit on circuits and energy and a trip to the MagLab.
To understand electricity, they study basic atomic structure.
Understanding energy consumption and their role as future engineers of renewable energy.
Fifth graders have developed the maturity to design and execute their own investigations.
The third part of the year is developed around the understanding of the structure and function of matter as well as the interdependent relationships in ecosystems.
Through gardening composting, and creating biobottles, students learn about the interactions between abiotic and biotic elements in a healthy ecosystem. This provides the foundation and structure for looking at life at a cellular level.
