Fifth Grade Curriculum Guide
The Catholic School is a unique faith-centered community, which integrates thinking and believing in ways that encourage intellectual growth, nurture faith, and inspire action.
The commitment to academic excellence, which fosters the intellectual development of all students, is an integral part of the mission of our school.
RELIGION
Your child will learn about:
- The Nicene and Apostles Creeds
- The Seven Sacraments
- The Liturgical Year
- Parts of the liturgy
- Ways to pray
- God’s word through the study of Scripture
- Respect for all of God’s creations
- Family life
WRITING
Your child will learn to:
- Use the 6 trait writing process: pre-writing, compose, evaluate, revise, edit, and publish
- Apply correct capitalization and punctuation
- Write coherent paragraphs using complete sentences
- Develop writing skills that emphasizes major writing form, purposes, and processes and that connects reading to writing
- Develop writing skills using the 4-square method for organizing thought and ideas
P.E.
Students are scheduled for two 45 minute P.E. classes each week. Students will be required to change into P.E. clothes (health and hygiene purposes). Students will be expected to participate at their current skill level, show growth in their skills, and show appropriate sportsmanship behavior in class.
READING
Your child will learn to:
- Read fluently using decoding skills, vocabulary development, and context clues
- Participate in self-selected reading
- Use strategies for comprehension such as: identify purpose for reading, follow directions, infer main idea, develop a summary, determine cause/effect, character development, and interpret diagrams/charts in text
- Read and respond to various literary genres (fiction, nonfiction, biography, poetry, etc.) for enrichment, recreation and lifelong learning
- Locate information using traditional and electronic text
SPELLING
Your child will learn to:
- Spell a list of words selected by the teacher which focuses on a new spelling pattern each week
MATH
Your child will learn to:
- Understand place value using decimals and commas
- Multiply whole numbers up to ofur digits
- Divide whole numbers by a two digit divisor, with or without a remainder
- Add, subtract, multiply and divide decimals
- Determine factors and multiples of numbers
- Identify equivalent fractions
- Add and subtract fractions and mixed numbers
- Understand basic geometry skills
- Solve one variable expressions
- Develop and interpret graphs, charts, and tables from data
- Compute mean, median, and mode
- Apply problem solving strategies to word problems and other applications
SCIENCE
Your child will:
- Use the scientific method to solve problems
- Identify the various stages in the life cycle of salmon
- Explore food chemistry, ecosystems, and motion & design using inquiry based activities
SOCIAL STUDIES
Your child will learn to:
- Develop directional skills and mapping
- Understand the reasons for studying history and an awareness of how we learn from the past
- To become familiar with the early explorers of North America and their impact on the development of the United States
- Develop an understanding of the causes of the Revolutionary War and the government created a result of the conflict
- Complete several informational state reports
ACTIVITIES
- Field trips are planned for various curriculum enrichment activities including science and social studies
- Beginning Band
- Raise and release salmon each spring in conjunction with field trips to view salmon spawning and a visit to a fish hatchery
- Monthly activities with Reach group
- Kostka Club
COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY
Your child will learn:
- Proper keyboarding techniques
- Word processing and Excel spreadsheet
- Give presentations to classmates using Power Point
- To develop skills in the use of Internet for project research
ART
The elements and principles of art are integrated into the classroom curriculum through one hour of art instruction each week with our school’s art teacher. Your child will create numerous projects related to social studies and science:
- The seasons
- Native American and colonial life
- The study of Pacific salmon
Your child will also study Van Gogh and the expressionist movement in art history.
Your child will learn skills involved in the following media:
- Printmaking
- Spackling
- Papier mache’ sculpture
- Tempera paint
- Impasto technique with acrylic paint
- Coil pottery
- Paper sculpture
- Collage
MUSIC
Music classes meet twice a week for 45 minutes. Students sing for much of the class time, beginning part-singing, evaluating their performance, working mainly with music of American culture. They are expected to continue toward proficiency in reading music—learning to write music as well. Students may audition for major school performances and will then start basic acting skills. All students are expected to perform as least once per year, as well as, turn in assignments of various types of written music. They will listen to music of specific composers and learn about them.
Students also have the opportunity to join the 5th grade beginning band.
September 2007