Creative Arts Charter School
Fifth Grade

Fifth Grade

Language Arts

Students read and write daily using the workshop model, combining teacher-directed mini-lessons and choices with student-directed choices of genre and topic. Using the reading workshop model, students learn reading comprehension strategies and practice applying them in multiple ways. Students read across fiction and nonfiction genres, identifying the strategies they use to make meaning, and writing responsively about what they have read. Students learn how to use text connections, style and format of different genres, questioning, inferring, summarizing, visualizing, determining importance, synthesizing, identifying when meaning breaks down and using strategies to repair meaning.

There are many reading opportunities: independent reading, shared books, read-alouds, reading in the content areas of social studies and science, reading for research purposes, etc. Reading is assessed through journals, reading lists, strategy use, discussion, conferences, running records, San Diego Quick assessments, and the Major Point Interview for Readers.

Using the writer's workshop model, students have the opportunity to do many different kinds of writing: research projects, essays, letters, stories, poems, and responses to literature. Students learn to revise and edit their work for form and content, and conference formally and informally with peers and the teacher. Students publish, share and celebrate their work in the class community. Writing is assessed by the teacher, the writer, and student peers, using rubrics and portfolios of diverse samples.

Sentence structure, grammar, spelling patterns, punctuation, and capitalization are taught through mini-lessons that reflect emerging student needs and grade level expectations, throughout the writing process. These issues are also addressed explicitly as they arise in the content areas. Students have weekly individualized spelling quizzes, based on different learning strategies that guide practice. Words on the individualized quizzes are generated as they are encountered in reading and writing, as well as through use of high frequency word lists, including "spelling demons."

Reading and writing are also an important part of the science, math, and social studies curricula. For example, students write explanations of their mathematical thinking, essays about historical periods, and scientific explanations of the results of experiments.

Mathematics

The fifth grade uses the TERC (Lawrence Hall of Science) spiraling curriculum, supplemented to meet any gaps in California Math Content Standards. For example, since TERC does not address long division, it is supplemented with long division practice using scaffolded "math slam" worksheets.

Wherever possible, math is integrated into other subjects. For example, in our GEMS Bubbleology science unit, dividing with decimals and finding the arithmetic mean are emphasized in order to complete the assigned experiment. The use of visual models and the integration of art are also coordinated with art staff.

In number sense, children work into the thousands and beyond, solving problems using patterns with factors, missing factors, multiples, and prime numbers. They learn the relationship between multiplication and division, and fractions and decimals, using number charts, calculators, cluster problems, and group work. While group work is emphasized, assessment is also done on an individual basis and students are accountable for their own work.

In measurement and geometry students work with "power polygon" shapes, coordinate grids, and "turtle turner" degree angle finders to identify, measure, and compare regular and irregular polygons, angles and supplementary angles, lines and turns. Games are used to push children to use what they do know about geometric shapes to discover what they do not yet know, building constructively on their developing and prior knowledge.

In all areas of the math curriculum, students are expected to learn and practice how to articulate orally and in writing how they came to their conclusions. Students are asked to "prove it" in partners, groups, and in written assessments. What steps did they take? Did they use a known pattern or estimation based on past experience? What evidence can they provide for their conclusions? How did they check their answers? Can they use more than one way to get an answer, including but not exclusive to standard algorithms?

Social Studies

Social studies and history are taught through research projects, simulations, reading assignments and read-alouds, and an interactive curriculum. For example, students use simulations to research colonial America, and develop travel agency projects to lure new colonists to a particular colonial region based on what they have learned about geography, commerce, weather, religious and political trends, and Native American populations of the time. Students learn about the experience of slavery through shared literature, music, and narratives of enslaved peoples. Students build a village based on Northwest Coast native people, conduct trade with European settlers and engage in treaty making.

They use maps, timelines, fictional and informational books in the classroom and in the library, cultural artifacts, encyclopedias, atlases, online sources, music and art of different cultures and periods, and many other tools to discover history and culture.

Science

Science is taught using inquiry-based materials. For example, the scientific method of inquiry, fair tests and experimentation with variables are taught in an extended unit using bubbles, aerodynamics, and the color spectrum. The solar system is taught using different historical models of the universe, and tested through observation and the creation of new student models. The systems in the human body are taught using models, books, computer programs and resources.

While learning about discoveries in the scientific community, students are given opportunities to develop their own hypotheses and theories about how things work, and to test them over time. Students engage in the study of the history of science through research and art projects, and connections are made with the literature read in class and with ideas available in the larger community.