Grade 5

5th Grade Curriculum Overview (2021-2022 School Year)

“My hope and wish is that one day, formal education will pay attention to what I call education of the heart. Just as we take for granted the need to acquire proficiency in the basic academic subjects, I am hopeful that a time will come when we can take it for granted that children will learn, as part of the curriculum, the indispensability of inner values: love, compassion, justice, and forgiveness.” -Dalai Lama                              

At the start of fifth grade, the child is able to look back towards childhood, but no longer plays or thinks in the same way as a younger child.  Not quite a teenager yet, there is also a looking ahead with anticipation towards the changes which adolescence will bring.  In a true sense the child stands at a fulcrum or balancing point between childhood and adolescence.

It takes grace and poise to stand in this balance, which presents a true picture of the fifth grader.  Quite often graceful and grounded in their own body, the child can experience fifth grade as a “golden year” of harmony. The perfection of truth, beauty and form, which the ancient Greeks so idealized, is experienced deeply in the events of the fifth grade Pentathlon.

 The child at this stage is therefore met with a Waldorf curriculum rich in history brought through ancient myths. In the Waldorf curriculum, before the children delve into a study of history, the myths of ancient cultures, in which spirituality and culture are closely interwoven, must be explored. At the same time geography is brought and understood not only through “places”, but also through how those places have shaped humans culturally. Conversely, the effects humans have had on the land is also considered.  Mathematics and free form geometry help to develop the fifth grader’s capacities for thinking and seeing in new ways, and science is taken up through the study of botany.

The fifth grade year stands as an important layer to the foundation of adolescent changes ahead in the middle school years.

2021 Block Rotation from Ms. Bair, Grade Five Teacher 2021-22 School Year

Arithmetic I - Introduction to Decimals                                           

  • From place value to expanded notation, adding, subtracting and multiplying decimals

  • The relationship between decimals and fractions brought with the  history of chocolate and stories from the Toltec, Aztec and Maya of Mesoamerica

  • Math Skills: Review and continuation of fraction concepts, ongoing arithmetic facts sheets

  • Language Arts Skills: Dictionary review, deepening work with capitalization and punctuation, ongoing building of spelling and vocabulary

Persia Main Lesson Book Page

Ancient Myths/ History I - Class Play           

  • The geography, mythology, and culture of Ancient India and Persia

  • Math Skills: The metric system plus story problems using time, money, linear and volume measurement, and fractions

  • Language Arts Skills: Sentence structure, theme and paragraph construction, proofreading with drafts and revisions.                               

Botany Painting - Mushrooms in the Moonlight

Natural Science I - Botany                                            

  • From fungi to flowering plants with observational and descriptive writings, plant illustrations and paintings

  • Discover the connections between life and environment that strengthen our respect, gratitude, and interest for the world

  • Honor Dia de los Muertos

  • Math Skills: Long division

  • Language Arts Skills: Quotation marks, colons, semi-colon, etc.

 
 

Geography and Social Studies I - North America  

  • Overview of the basic geographical regions of the North American continent

  • Terrain, climate, flora and fauna, cultural characteristics, industries and folk legends

  • Math Skills: Money

  • Language Arts Skills: Eight parts of speech

Arithmetic II - Geometry                                                   

  • Freehand geometry drawings of geometric shapes and patterns. Understanding the line, the arc, the point, the circle, and triangles

  • Math Skills: Percentage

  • Language Arts Skills: Verb Tenses

Ancient Myths/ History II - Mesopotamia and Egypt     

  • Geography, mythology, and culture of Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt

  •  Math Skills: More story problems using time, money, linear and volume measurement, and fractions

  • Language Arts Skills: Active and passive voice, direct and indirect speech

 

Natural Science II - Botany       

  • Further exploration of the plant kingdom by studying the symbiotic relationship of the insect and plant worlds with a focus on the flowering plants

  • Math Skills: Geometry

  • Language Arts Skills: Sentence and paragraph structuring

 

Geography and Social Studies II - North America           

  • US states and capitals

  • Write and illustrate a report on a state culminating with a presentation to the class

  • Math Skills: Decimals

  • Language Arts Skills: Compound sentences                                                                         

Play from 2019

Ancient Myths/ History III - Ancient Greece                   

  • Geography, mythology, and culture of Ancient Greece

  • Pentathlon training

  • Math Skills: Estimation, rounding

  • Language Arts Skills: Punctuation    

Arithmetic III - Geometry                                                    

  • Further freehand constructions of quadrilaterals, squares, rectangles, parallelogram, pentagon, hexagon, straight lines forming curved lines, circles and ellipses

  • Pentathlon

  • Math Skills: Averages, mean, median and mode, graphs and plots

  • Language Arts Skills: Dictionary   

                                                  

 

The Arts:

Form Drawing, Watercolor Painting, Advanced Knitting, Woodworking

Winter Assembly:

The Winter Assembly for 2021 was a virtual experience. Each class provided songs and poems as well as images of work that they have been working on thus far this year. Here is what Grade Five shared.

 

 

 
Dorothy Kulke