Grade 5
Fifth Grade is an important transition year when students begin the process of leaving childhood behind and gaining tools needed for success into the middle school years and beyond. It is a year of expanding views, the beginning of personal reflection, of application of knowledge to everyday life and to oneself, and with more complex and sophisticated levels of learning in all curricular areas.
In Bible, students learn in-depth about the lives of past and present heroes—their strengths and their weaknesses. Significant, meaningful classroom discussions and prayer solidify the lessons learned. In chapel, we are instructed in the Westminster Catechism of Faith via weekly visits from the pastors of Fourth Presbyterian Church. Fifth grade students keep a spiritual journal, where they write their thoughts and reflections, making personal application to each chapel lesson. History units cover the Renaissance, Reformation, England’s Golden Age, Feudal Japan, Westward Expansion before the Civil War, and the Civil War. Special study trips to the National Gallery of Art and various historical sites, along with drama, bring history alive. In Geography, lakes of the world and the geography of the United States, region by region, are studied.
Science at this level is very rich and hands-on. The school year begins with an outdoor education overnight to Shenandoah National Park, where each student is certified as a Junior Forest Ranger. Next is our “The Bay Starts Here” study, in which students test and monitor streams on our campus that ultimately flow into the Chesapeake Bay. Also studied during fifth grade are trees, plant and animal cells, scientific classification, animal growth and heredity, biomes and cycles in nature. Each spring, the fifth graders maintain and monitor a bluebird trail on our 30-acre campus, in which they record weekly observations and activities at each nest site, count fledglings and report results to the Maryland Bluebird Society.
Math brings students to greater complexities of number operations with the study of decimals, two digit divisors, data, graphs, and probability, algebra, geometry, fraction concepts and operations, ratio, proportion and percent, integers, equations and graphing.
Reading takes fifth graders through several classics: Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Scott O’Dell’s The Hawk That Dare Not Hunt by Day, Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and portions of Shakespeare’s A Mid Summer Night’s Dream. Each is carefully selected to correspond with the history units covered and each is further integrated into writing and art. These books and the corresponding field trips, drama and writing activities enrich the student’s vocabulary, expand their understanding of history and widen their perspectives.
Writing finds fifth graders honing basic composition skills to develop finely written pieces in a variety of genre. Proofreading and spelling skills are emphasized, as well as pre-writing techniques and organization. Students write research reports, book reports, fiction and non-fiction. An in-depth poetry unit covers the grammar of poetry and gives students the opportunity to write poems of their own in addition to memorizing classic poems such as Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” “The Arrow and The Song” by Longfellow, and Blake’s “The Tyger.” Finally, students end the year with a focus on writing essays. This unit culminates with each student writing an essay which he or she presents at the graduation ceremony in June.
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