5th Grade

Fifth grade students at Christ the King Parish School are in the final year of their preparation for middle school when vitally important executive and time/project management skills are fine-tuned and mastered.  Learning to accept responsibility and develop much-needed independence is balanced and enhanced with opportunities for collaborative, small group sharing, class jobs, and working cooperatively in our parish's community garden.  Volunteer service projects send our students out into our parish and local communities in a variety of fun and giving ways.  

In Religion, we delve deeply into the Old and New Testaments of the Bible as we learn about how God created our amazing universe, the Sacraments of the Catholic Church, and the Mass.  A field trip to Mt. Angel Abbey early in the school year sets the tone for a reverent and meaningful study of icons, the saints, praying the Liturgy of the Hours (Noon Prayer on Fridays with the 8th grade class), and one decade of the Rosary after lunch each day.  Prayer is an integral and organic part of our everyday routine.  

In Math, students extend their knowledge of place value from one end to the other:  billions to thousandths.  Adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions and decimals build on skills learned in previous grades with the later addition of  exponents, order of operations, coordinate plane, graphing, and geometry.  This may sound like a lot, but we all arrive at the finish line with a lot of help from our friends, family, Khan Academy, and a teacher who loves to teach math.   

Our study of science pivots around 3 areas: Life Science, Earth Science, and Physical Science.  In addition to completing a variety of projects, learning about the elements of the Periodic Table, and by experiencing hands-on experiments and engineering design activities, our students gain valuable knowledge and enjoyment by working in our parish community garden, which is a living lab where chemistry, physics, soil science, living organisms in a living ecosystem are all studied intensely and with great enthusiasm and interest. Participation in our school's science fair in the spring is a much-anticipated activity/experience that takes quite some time to teach and prepare for.  An important element of our science curriculum is understanding the scientific method, which is first studied and then exemplified through the development of an experiment that must produce measurable data that is then graphed.  Each student communicates his or her experimental design through the creation of a trifold where the Research Question, Hypothesis, Independent/Dependent/Constant Variables, Materials Used, Procedure, Analysis of the Data and Conclusions are clearly displayed.  

Our study of language arts is multi-faceted with an early emphasis on Word Science, which helps students gain an understanding of why our English language can be difficult to learn. We learn about the 5 major languages that have contributed to the development of English over the past couple of thousand of years.  Our spelling curriculum is based on the study of a variety of Greek and Latin roots, along with affixes (prefixes and suffixes) that are attached to base words.  This empowers students to make an "educated guess" as to a word's meaning.  Recent research-based studies in the Science of Reading informs us how our human brains are able to read.  Word analysis that involves identifying and analyzing the basic structure of words makes spelling words correctly a lot less a matter of guessing and hoping for the best. Fifth grade students are able to build on their study of phonograms taught in the earlier grades at Christ the King. The study of sentence types and structure empowers students to write complete sentences with greater and greater accuracy by learning to recognize and correct fragments and run-ons.  Researching and writing a variety of essays and reports provides the practice needed to become excellent writers in preparation for middle school and beyond.  One-on-one writer's conferences with their teacher provides an opportunity to discuss a student's work and potentially advance good writing to great, and great writing to excellent--and beyond.  We study and analyze literature through the lens of Notice and Note, which encourages students to recognize when an author is using stylistic techniques to develop a book's plot, setting, characters, theme, and conflict. Students participate in weekly Literature Circles, which function like a small book club.  Students also develop the habit of reading by having a set number of pages to read independently each term.  

Our social studies curriculum is delicately balanced with textbooks that not only teach through a secular interpretation, but also from a Catholic perspective. We begin our year's study by learning more deeply about Native American cultures and the impact of European exploration and contact. Our studies continue through Early colonization and end with the Revolutionary War.  Both the study of social studies and literature pivot around the novels read in language arts and the historical fiction novels that the teacher reads aloud to students as they eat their morning snack. 

The goal I have for my 5th grade students is that they have whatever they need to succeed, and our motto is "Hard Work Pays Off."  Fridays are designated as "Fun Fridays," when we vary our daily schedule just a bit.  While we still cover our daily academics, we do so with games and activities. Our class is divided into 4 "Houses," just like in the Harry Potter series.  Having gone to school in Australia, the House System was a part of everyday school life in all schools, private and public.  Throughout the year, students are rewarded with House Points for a variety of reasons--and yes, points can be deducted for not having homework completed when due, although reasonable excuses are accepted.  Speaking of homework--I recognize that students have activities and a "life" outside of school.  Generally, nightly homework will consist of a math worksheet, advancing math skills using Khan Academy, and reading for their upcoming weekly Lit. Circle meeting and Independent Reading term goals.  There will be occasions when researching or writing a report, adding the finishing touches to a trifold or searching for items/materials to create a saints costume for our Saints Fair will necessitate some extra time and effort at home, but I try my level best to keep those to a minimum.