FIFTH GRADE DEVELOPMENT
Strong foundations for observing the world and seeking the truth develop as the students learn the stories and history of ancient civilizations around the world.  Stories from ancient India, Persia, Assyria, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece reveal the historical developments in humanity. As the students’ study follows these epochs of human development, this classical education helps to deepen the child’s self awareness through understanding historical events.  Harmony in form is a theme, the students learn to fine tune their physical abilities in “Greek” fashion through training for the pentathlon, which is an event of Olympic style games. Harmony and balance are practiced in 2D and 3D arts and music to continue that theme. Learning to make careful and objective observations and descriptions during the study of Botany helps prepare the student for middle school science and writing. The geography studies reach beyond the local state to the whole country and the continent. In mathematics, fraction work deepens and changes focus to decimal form.

 

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FIFTH GRADE CURRICULUM

LANGUAGE ARTS
Writing

• Research, writing and presentation of reports
  
• Descriptive writing assignments
  
• Students work to develop their own paragraphs for main lesson books
  
• Paragraph structure
  
• Making and using outlines
  
• Revising rough drafts to a complete composition
  
• Development of narrative writing
  
• Friendly letter writing
  
• Basic proofreading skills
  

Reading

• Children are assigned books that complement the curriculum or introduce new genres of literature
  
• Dictionary skills 
  
• Spelling
  

Grammar

• Continuous attention is paid to grammar
  
• Possessives:  pronouns and apostrophes
  
• Verb tense consistency / subject –verb agreement
  
• Direct and indirect speech
  
• Proper usage
  

Speaking

• Speech work
  
• Poems
  
• Oral presentations of reports
  
• Class Play
  

MATHEMATICS

• Review all previous work
  
• Continue with mental mat
  
• Students check their work
  
• Fractions
  
• Fluency with common and unlike denominators
  
• The four processes with fractions
  
• Ratios
  
• Decimal fractions
  
• Decimals are introduced including place value and all four processes
  
• Measurement
  
• Review of previous work
  
• Metric system may be introduced
  
• Geometry
  
• Freehand geometry
  
• Arithmetic facts
  
• Review and practice of arithmetic facts
  

SCIENCE

• Botany
  
• Study the archetypal plant
  
• Observe the local plant world
  
• Plant families
  
• Life cycle of plants
  
• Social insects 
  
• Insects in relation to plants
  

SOCIAL STUDIES
Geography

• North American geography
  
• Political divisions of North American geography
  

History

• Geography, mythology and cultural history of ancient civilizations:  India,  Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece
  
• Biographies of leading figures
  
• Pentathlon
  

 

ART
Painting

• Images from the curriculum
  

Drawing 

• Freehand geometric drawing
  

Modeling

• The children model with beeswax and clay in relation to main lesson topics
  

FOREIGN LANGUAGE
FRENCH AND GERMAN

• Continued practice and expansion of comprehension and speaking
  
• Continued expansion of material from previous years
  
• Memorizing long poems or simple skits
  
• Reading, exploring texts, answering questions
  
• Continued grammar exploration including negation, declension, conjugation, and cases
  
• Sentence structure
  
• Dictations
  

HANDWORK

• Knitting in the round with 4 or 5 needles
  
• Projects may include socks or mittens and a hat
  

ORCHESTRA

• Most major scales as well as several minor scales
  
• Mastery of note values
  
• Songs more advanced in rhythm and technique
  
• Introduction of third position 
  
• Introduction of compositions with 3 and 4 part harmonies
  

GYM

• Elements of personal fitness
  
• Group games and sports  (flag football, basketball, volleyball, floor hockey, baseball)
  
• One-mile fitness run, jump rope fitness test, gymnastics fitness test
  
• Individual skills focusing on cardiovascular conditioning
  
• Pentathlon skills