Our Curriculum

In 5th grade we want you to continue to practice strategies of a good reader while reading different genres. We will learn and practice important comprehension strategies and "signposts", as well as "mark" the text during our Reader's Workshop everyday. We will learn how to monitor for meaning, envision, predict, empathize, connect, and infer so we may enjoy the just-right books we read and dig deeper into those stories. Books at a 5th grade level are rich in content, and provide many opportunities for conversation. I can’t wait to see my students devour books!

Writing instruction will be taught in the form of Writer’s Workshop. Each child will have his or her own writer’s notebook in which each child will be encouraged to write daily. We will be covering narrative, informative, and argumentative (opinion) styles of writing. We will also write about our reading and even do a bit of poetry. My goal in teaching writing is for my students to love writing and to write for a variety of purposes. Our writing mini-lessons will help us hone our skills and conferring with Mrs. Hood about what we write will be a vital part of our Writer’s Workshop as well. I hope WRITING will be one of your favorite parts of the school day!

Math may be your preferred school subject, as many 5th graders love math most of all. If you want to do well this year, I have one special tip for you! You MUST know your multiplication facts by heart. We will use skip counting and special songs to review our multiplication facts, which will also help us know our division facts. Other 5th grade skills besides Multiplication and Division of Whole Numbers that will be covered are Graphing Line and Bar Graphs, Rules of Algebra, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, and Division of Fractions and Decimals, Measurement, Area and Volume.

Science will be a major part of our weekly curriculum. In fact, one day of each week, we will spend a large amount of our time concentrated on this subject area. We will have a special notebook that we will be creating and adding to each week to document our learning. This is sure to be a part of the week you will look forward to!

In Social Studies this year, we will be learning all about American History (Ancient America to Westward Expansion) as well as Geography of our United States. We will be using the USA Studies Weekly Newspapers to supplement our learning.