Curriculum

Reading/Writing

Module 1: Inventors at Work
Students will listen to, read, and view a variety of texts and media that present them with information about inventors. A genre focus on informational text provides students with opportunities to identify author’s purpose, central ideas, and text structure in order to better understand unfamiliar texts. Students will also encounter narrative nonfiction, realistic fiction, and science fiction/fantasy to build knowledge across genres. As students build their vocabulary and synthesize topic knowledge, they will learn that people can create amazing things through innovation, perseverance, and the desire to solve problems.

Writing focus: Informational text: Expository Essay

Module 2: What a Story
Students will listen to, read, and view a variety of texts and media that present them with different ways to tell a story. A genre focus on fiction provides students with opportunities to identify characters, setting, plot, and conflict in order to better understand unfamiliar texts. Students will also encounter poetry, myth, and fantasy/adventure to build knowledge across genres. As students build their vocabulary and synthesize topic knowledge, they will learn that the elements of a great story can be found in literature of all genres.

Writing focus: Narrative: Story

Module 3: Natural Disasters
Students will listen to, read, and view a variety of texts and media that present them with information about natural disasters. A genre focus on informational text provides students with opportunities to identify central ideas, summarize events, and to ask and answer questions in order to better understand unfamiliar texts. Students will also encounter narrative nonfiction, realistic fiction, and persuasive text to build knowledge across genres. As students build their vocabulary and synthesize topic knowledge, they will learn about the causes of different types of natural disasters.

Writing focus: Argument: Persuasive Essay

Module 4: Wild West
Students will listen to, read, and view a variety of texts and media that present them with information about the people who settled the West. A genre focus on informational text provides students with opportunities to identify central ideas, text structure, and author’s craft techniques in order to better understand unfamiliar texts. Students will also encounter personal historical fiction to build knowledge across genres. As students build their vocabulary and synthesize topic knowledge, they will learn about the settlers’ varied experiences.

Writing focus: Informational text: Letter

Module 5: Project Earth
Students will listen to, read, and view a variety of texts and media that present them with information about the Earth. A genre focus on persuasive text provides students with opportunities to identify the author’s purpose and audience, as well as the elements of persuasive writing in order to better understand unfamiliar texts. Students will also encounter realistic fiction, drama, and informational text to build knowledge across genres. As students build their vocabulary and synthesize topic knowledge, they will learn that there are many ways to protect the future of the world around us.

Writing focus: Argument: Editorial

Module 6: Art for Everyone
Students will listen to, read, and view a variety of texts and media that present them with information about how people create and share different art forms. A genre focus on biography provides students with opportunities to identify central ideas, point of view, author’s craft, theme, figurative language, and literary elements in order to better understand unfamiliar texts. Students will also encounter realistic fiction and procedural text to build knowledge across genres. As students build their vocabulary and synthesize topic knowledge, they will learn about the powerful impact of various art forms.

Writing focus: Narrative: Personal Narrative

Module 7: Above, Below, and Beyond
Students will listen to, read, and view a variety of texts and media that present them with information about exploration. A genre focus on autobiography provides students with opportunities to identify author’s craft and theme, and to make and confirm predictions in order to better understand unfamiliar texts. Students will also encounter informational text, persuasive text, science fiction, and narrative nonfiction to build knowledge across genres. As students build their vocabulary and synthesize topic knowledge, they will learn about exciting land, sea, and space discoveries.

Writing focus: Informational text: Research Report

Module 8: A New Home
Students will listen to, read, and view a variety of texts and media related to the experience of moving to a new country. A genre focus on poetry provides students with opportunities to identify the elements of poetry and author’s craft in order to better understand unfamiliar texts. Students will also encounter informational text and realistic fiction to build knowledge across genres. As students build their vocabulary and synthesize topic knowledge, they will learn that moving to a new country and learning to feel at home there is a life-changing experience.

Writing focus: Poetry: Lyric Poem

Module 9: Unexpected, Unexplained
Students will listen to, read, and view a variety of texts and media related to the experience of moving to a new country. A genre focus on poetry provides students with opportunities to identify the elements of poetry and author’s craft in order to better understand unfamiliar texts. Students will also encounter informational text and realistic fiction to build knowledge across genres. As students build their vocabulary and synthesize topic knowledge, they will learn that moving to a new country and learning to feel at home there is a life-changing experience.

Writing focus: Narrative: Imaginative Story

Module 10: The Lives of Animals
Students will listen to, read, and view a variety of texts and media that present them with information about animals. A genre focus on informational text provides students with opportunities to identify tone, central ideas, text structure, and media techniques in order to better understand unfamiliar texts. Students will also encounter narrative nonfiction and poetry to build knowledge across genres. As students build their vocabulary and synthesize topic knowledge, they will learn that animals demonstrate amazing characteristics and abilities in their everyday lives.

Writing focus: Argument: Letter to Editor

 Math

Unit 1:  Finding Volume
Students find the volume of right rectangular prisms and solid figures composed of two right rectangular prisms.

Unit 2 :  Fractions as Quotients and Fraction Multiplication
Students develop an understanding of fractions as the division of the numerator by the denominator, that is a÷b=a/b, and solve problems that involve the multiplication of a whole number and a fraction, including fractions greater than 1.

Unit 3:  Multiplying and Dividing Fractions
Students extend multiplication and division of whole numbers to multiply fractions by fractions and divide a whole number and a unit fraction.

Unit 4:  Wrapping Up Multiplication and Division with Multi-digit Numbers
Students use the standard algorithm to multiply multi-digit whole numbers. They divide whole numbers up to four-digits by two-digits divisors using strategies based on place value and properties of operations.

Unit 5:  Place Value Patterns and Decimal Operations
Students build from place value understanding in grade 4 to recognize that in a multi-digit number, a digit in one place represents 10 times as much as it represents in the place to its right and 1/10 of what it represents in the place to its left. They use this place value understanding to round, compare, order, add, subtract, multiply, and divide decimals.

Unit 6:  More Decimal and Fraction Operations
Students solve multi-step problems involving measurement conversions, line plots, and fraction operations, including addition and subtraction of fractions with unlike denominators. They also explain patterns when multiplying and dividing by powers of 10 and interpret multiplication as scaling by comparing products with factors.

Unit 7: Shapes on the Coordinate Plane
Students plot coordinate pairs on a coordinate grid and classify triangles and quadrilaterals in a hierarchy based on properties of side length and angle measure. They generate, identify, and graph relationships between corresponding terms in two numeric patterns, given two rules, and represent and interpret real world and mathematical problems on a coordinate grid.

Unit 8:  Putting it All Together
Students consolidate and solidify their understanding of various concepts and skills related to major work of the grade. They also continue to work toward fluency goals of the grade.

Science

Unit 1: Structure and Properties of Matter
Students will learn what changes when matter changes. 

Unit 2:  Space Systems: Stars and Solar Systems
Students will learn about apparent brightness and planetary position that affects shadows and length of day/night.

Unit 3: Earth's Systems
Students describe interactions of the planet's spheres.  They will also identify and analyze water distribution around the world and explore how communities can protect the Earth's resources.

Unit 4: Matter an Energy in Organisms and Ecosystems
Students will understand how matter cycles through ecosystems.  

Unit 5: Growing and Changing
Students will understand the structure and function of the male and female reproductive system, and how puberty creates changes within the body.  

Social Studies

Unit 1: Colonization and Implications
Students will explore what happens when cultures come into contact with each other.  They will identify and explain multiple perspectives when exploring the events, ideas, and issues in North America between 1492-1607.

Unit 2:  Early Colonies
Students will explore how the first English settlements, and the contact between peoples, form the foundations of a new nation.

Unit 3: American Revolution
Students will explore what's worth fighting for.  Students will understand that conflict is often caused by social/cultural, economic, and/or political differences in belief, and events in the American Revolution reveal the foundational belief system that defines us as Americans.

Unit 4:  A New Nation
Students will explore if the U.S. Constitution establishes a just government that allows the country to function effectively as a nation of diverse citizens.

Unit 5:  Economics
Students will examine how individuals use financial institutions to manage personal finances.