Grade 5

The Grade 5 studio arts program offers a progression in skill levels with art materials, tools, techniques, and processes while encouraging personal creativity to blossom in exch child. Guided by the Eight Studio Habits of Mind (PZ Harvard), students create artworks based on direct observation and from their imaginations while learning about contemporary artists, art history, and cultural traditions. Fifth graders explore diverse media in art projects that inspire their imaginations, make interdisciplinary connections, and develop concrete strategies in the development of each child's creative process. Students further their knowledge and understandings of the fundamentals of art while working with a variety of 2D and 3D materials, making both individual and collaborative projects from their own designs. Color, line, space, texture, and form are only a few of the elements of art that fifth graders will further focus on this year through clay sculpture, water-based painting focusing on color theory, 2D drawings in one point perspective, negative and positive images, and observational drawings.

• In Grade Five, students take Creative Movement and Drama classes once a week throughout the academic year. With weekly class focused on creative movement and dramatic expression, the students become familiar with the concepts of sensory awareness, basic elements of dance, pantomime, step combinations, and creative collaboration. They are also introduced to various dance forms from around the world and explore the movement styles of these. In the spring term, the students work to prepare a grade-level performance of music, dance, and drama presented to the lower school and parents.

• Historical case studies, documents-based questions, and student selected projects that encourage engagement and understanding of essential questions
• Interdisciplinary explorations that support enduring understandings and critical-thinking skills
• Analysis of contemporary world issues and relevant historical events through reading, writing, and discussion
• Field trips to Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography, Lexington and Concord, and the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate

• Power & Perspective: Colonization of the Americas
• Conflict & Change: The American Revolution
• A More Perfect Union: Formation of the U.S. Government
• American Heroes Who Fought for Social Justice
• Your Land, My Land: Westward Expansion
• Land of the Free: Slavery and The Underground Railroad

Language Arts

• Writing process with an emphasis on pre-writing strategies, drafting, and proofreading
• Paragraphs with topic sentences, supporting details, and conclusions
• Compound sentences with coordinating conjunctions and semicolons
• Grammar foundation: sentence structure, parts of speech, punctuation, and spelling
• Comprehensive weekly vocabulary study
• Writing Units: Personal Narrative, Persuasive Letter, Research Report, Research-Based Argument Essay, Literary Essay, Poetry, Microfiction
• Reading a variety of literature including novels, short stories, poetry, nonfiction.
• Class novels: Wonder, Home of the Brave, Number the Stars, Biography book-groups, Refugee, and Day of Tears.
• Independent Reading Books self-selected by the students.
• Active reading strategies to support comprehension and engagement
• Reading for detail, finding the main idea, and making inferences
• Reflection on literature through student reading journals and class discussions
• Mini-lessons and read alouds to model comprehension strategies and active reading practices
• Using textual evidence both in writing and in discussion to support claims and enhance understanding

Mathematics

• Math in Focus program, based on Singapore math approach
• Building number sense and conceptual foundations through explorations that follow the concrete, pictorial, abstract pedagogy
• Emphasis on discussion, problem solving, and process to build perseverance and support conceptual understanding
• Use of bar modeling and other strategies to help solve multi-step problems problems
• Reviews of place value, multi-digit multiplication and division, and rounding
• Performing all operations with fractions, mixed numbers, and decimals
• Exploring the relationships between fractions, ratios, decimals, and percents
• Investigating volume, polygons, and the coordinate plane

Health and Wellness

• Peer pressure / decision making
• Friendship, harassment, bullying, cliques
• Changes during Puberty
• Sexual and reproductive anatomy
• Gender identity and different family structures
• Internet safety
• Emphasis on citizenship, leadership, independence, accountability, and empathy
• Year long Big Buddies program pairs fifth graders with a “Little Buddy” in Pre K or Kindergarten
• Weekly buddy time (approximately 30 minutes) allows for connections through both curricular work and free play
• Three-day, two-night trip to Camp Kieve in Maine

Library
The Library provides diverse print and digital resources to the classrooms to support units of study. The Library organizes visits from outstanding children's authors and illustrators to enhance curricula. In weekly Library classes students:

• Understand the importance of evaluating a resource
• Get introduced to Noodle Tools (electronic citation aid) and learn how to make citations, and to follow copyright and plagiarism rules
• Access and use databases, websites, and search engine
• Understand the importance of evaluating a resource
• Explore different genres in personal book choices
• Share book recommendations with peers
• Engage in sustained silent reading
• Participate in the Massachusett's Children's Book Awards
• Use Sora by OverDrive

Grade 5 music classes meet once a week throughout the academic year. Class time is spent focusing on music literacy and applying newly acquired skills to performance-based activities. By year's end, students in Grade 5 should be familiar with the names of the notes in the Treble Clef, be able to identify a variety of rhythmic values, and be conversant with musical vocabulary. In addition to their smaller music classes, Grade 5 homerooms meet concurrently for Chorus once a week. This time provides a unique opportunity for students to work in a large group setting. Vocal health, breath management, diction, pitch, and a widening of vocal range, are emphasized. In addition to preparing for upcoming performances, students study music from a variety of cultures, genres, and time periods. Opportunities for individual enrichment include the grade 5 musical, Massachusetts All State Treble Chorus, and Lower School talent shares.

• A stepping stone to Upper School Athletics, Grade 5 students are introduced to the locker room, changing clothes for PE, and longer seasonal units.
• Integrating locomotor skills and manipulative skills in lead up games for team and individual sports
• Instruction in teamwork, game rules, and strategies: field hockey, soccer, touch football, basketball, floor hockey, volleyball, lacrosse, softball, baseball, and Project Adventure
• Instruction in individual sports: ice skating, dance, indoor rock climbing, and racket sports
• Understanding the cause and effect of physical activity, fitness, and overall health
• Honoring teamwork, compassion, and fair play

• Investigating molecules by using models, observations, and experiments to understand their physical properties and interactions
• Studying matter by investigating water and its unique properties and how they impact the climate and health of the planet
• Using models and mapping skills to understand ocean currents and how they affect climate and ocean health
• Understanding the hydrological and carbon cycle and how they work to sustain life
• Developing experiments to determine how balanced and unbalanced forces affect an object
• Identifying types of energy and how that energy is transferred from object to object
• Developing representations of waves to understand how amplitude and wavelength affect the transfer of energy through objects
• Classifying organisms based on physical characteristics, life cycles, and behaviors observed through the comparison of live and preserved specimens
• Understanding the interactions and dynamics of organisms in an ecosystem and how these interactions provide a balance and order to the natural world

The Spanish curriculum is cumulative. Each year, students review topics previously studied and add more terms to each thematic vocabulary set and grammar unit, as well as adding new units. Students focus on topics relevant to their daily lives and experience. Teaching is conducted primarily using Comprehension Input techniques, whereby students are immersed in the material via stories, songs, skits, cultural videos, photos, and games.
In Grade 5, students continue to add to their knowledge of basic grammatical terms, and are increasingly accountable for listening and reading comprehension. More attention is given to spelling and phonemes through formal writing activities. Structured speaking activities increase in complexity and there is an expectation that students will be able to speak extemporaneously in a basic fashion. Students continue formalized extemporaneous speaking activities in response to written prompts.

• Writing short stories in Spanish.
• Greater focus on cognates and question words.
• Thinking in terms of antonyms and synonyms.
• Expand our topics of daily conversation, write and perform dialogues to practice key grammar and vocabulary.
• Introduce more expressions to react to what someone else has said.
• Basic grammatical concepts, including all forms of present tense verbs except "vosotros", negative forms, verb/adjective/noun agreement, punctuation, commands, as well as expressing likes and dislikes with the verb "gustar". Students will begin to hone in on the concept of verb endings, and the fact that the endings convey who is doing the action. 
• Describing oneself and others with an expanded vocabulary set.
• Vocabulary for body parts, colors, seasons/weather, basic food - meat, fruits, vegetables, professions, basic clothing, names of some shops and places one goes for sports, dining, and entertainment. Vocabulary for family members, pets, domestic animals, and sea creatures, rooms of the house and household items, prepositions of position and location using the verb "estar".
• Continuing to work with Ir + a + place and Ir + a + infinitive to say where you are going and what you are going to do there.
• Focus on stem changing verbs - tener, querer, pensar, preferir. Add present tense forms on decir, encontrar, poder.