5th Grade ACSU Curriculum Standards

Fifth Grade Curriculum Standards:

Understanding the ACSU K-6 Reporting System

 

What does Being Proficient Mean in Grade 5

The following summaries of the Power Standards and Indicators for this grade level should be used by parents with the Progress Reports, and as part of the parent conferences, to better understand what is meant by Being Proficient.

 

Reading

Word Identification and Strategies:  Students apply word identification / decoding strategies leading to automaticity.

Indicators:  Students will:

  • identify multi-syllabic words by using knowledge of the six syllable types and syllable division

 

Vocabulary Strategies:  Students identify the meaning of unfamiliar words.

Indicators:  Students will:

  • use knowledge of word structure, including prefixes/suffixes and base words
  • use knowledge of context clues
  • use resources such as dictionaries, glossaries, or prior knowledge

 

Accuracy and Fluency:  Students read material with accuracy and fluency.

Indicators:  Students will:

  • read grade level material with at least 90% accuracy
  • read grade level material with an oral fluency rate of at least 125 words correct per minute
  • read grade level material with phrasing and expression using text features such as punctuation, italics, and dialogue
  • read grade level material with a silent fluency rate of at least 160 words correct per minute

 

Understanding, Interpretation and Analysis of Literary Text/Citing Evidence:  Students analyze and interpret elements of literary texts, citing evidence as appropriate.

Indicators:  Students will:

  • generate inferential questions and take notes
  • make inferences about relationships among elements (plot, character, setting)
  • identify author’s message or theme
  • describe or provide examples of characters’ interactions or their changes over time

Understanding Interpretation and Analysis of Informational Text/Citing Evidence:  Students analyze and interpret informational text, citing evidence as appropriate.

Indicators:  Students will:

  • generate inferential questions and take notes
  • organize information to show understanding, such as representing main/central ideas or details within text through comparing/contrasting
  • draw inferences about text, including author’s purpose (e.g., to persuade) and form and support assertions about central ideas

 

Writing

 

Writing Process:  Students use the writing process of prewriting, drafting, revising, editing and critiquing to produce final drafts that show appropriate command of purpose, organization, details, and voice/tone.

Indicators:  Students will:

  • prewrite, draft, revise, and edit

 

Conventions and Structures:  Students demonstrate appropriate command of conventions and structures. 

Indicators:  All of previous indicators, plus students will:

  • correct grammatical errors (subject verb agreement, double negative, nonstandard usage)
  • use punctuation to clarify meaning (quotation marks, commas, apostrophes)
  • apply spelling knowledge in proofreading and editing writing
  • spell more homonyms and homophones; apply syllable division, morpheme, affix patterns to new situations
  • use varied sentence length to enhance meaning
  • recognize variety of organizational structures within paragraphs (description, chronology, proposition/support, compare/contrast)

 

Response to Text:  Students write in response to literary and informational text.

Indicators: 

Independent Writing – Students will:

  • set context for response by selecting key information to summarize text
  • state focus in response to a given question which prompts inferential thinking
  • maintain and support focus with specific evidence from text which shows understanding of text
  • organize ideas so that reader can easily follow writer’s thinking, including context, transitions, conclusion, explanation

 

Informational Writing:  Students write to inform, to persuade, and to demonstrate a process.

 

Indicators:  Report from Multiple Sources

Independent Writing – Students will:

  • use organizational text structure appropriate to focus (description, chronological, proposition/support, compare/contrast)
  • write introduction to set context with appropriate information
  • state and maintain a perspective (focus, controlling idea) on a subject/topic
  • use transition words/phrases appropriate to text structure
  • include details/information/ideas to adequate depth that are relevant to a given focus and that shows understanding of focus
  • exclude extraneous information
  • list sources at end of report

 

Expressive Writing:  Students write to tell and dramatize a coherent story or reflect on a personal experience. 

Indicators: Narrative

Indpendent Writing – Students will:

  • create a clear story line
  • establish context (setting or background), problem/conflict/challenge and resolution
  • use transitions to establish clear chronology, enhance meaning
  • use dialogue, develop characters through description

 

Math

 

Number and Operation:  Students demonstrate computational fluency- emphasizing conceptual understanding as well as efficient calculation.

Indicators:  Students will:

  • estimate and evaluate reasonableness of solutions
  • know and fluently use multiplication and division facts through 12 x 12.
    • multiply 2-digit by 2-digit numbers using a variety of efficient mental and paper/pencil strategies
    • use the associative, commutative, and distributive properties, the area model, and the inverse relationship between multiplication and division to develop efficient, accurate, and generalizable procedures to find quotients involving 3 digit dividends by 2 digit divisors
    • consider the context of the problem to select the most useful form of the quotient involving remainders
    • understand and use the three-part definition of a fraction:  1) a fraction names part of a designated whole, 2) the denominator breaks the whole into equal parts, 3) the numerator indicates how many equal parts of the whole are being considered
    • demonstrate meanings for fractions in different contexts (area, set, linear) and recognize relationships between different forms such as mixed numbers, improper fractions, decimals, and percents
    • use benchmark numbers such as 0, 1/2, 1, and equivalence to compare and order fractions, as well as, to estimate sums and differences
    • demonstrate conceptual understanding of the base 10 number system to calculate and explain addition and subtraction of decimals to the thousandths place
    • demonstrate conceptual understanding of the base 10 number system to calculate and explain addition and subtraction of commonly used fractions (halves, thirds, fourths, fifths, eighths, and tenths)
    • develop an understanding of the order of operations and use it for all operations

 

Geometry and Measurement:  Students demonstrate knowledge of measurement, properties of figures, and dimensionality.

Indicators:  Students will:

  • develop strategies for determining the area and perimeter of rectangles and related triangles and parallelograms
  • quantify volume by finding the total number of same-sized cubes needed to fill the space inside rectangular prisms without gaps or overlaps
  • select and accurately use appropriate tools for measuring length in metric and US customary units
  • chose a strategy to  convert whole number units within a system
  • identify and describe congruence in 2-dimensional shapes using reflections, rotations, or translations
  • plot and identify coordinates in quadrant 1
  • classify triangles by their sides and angles
  • estimate measures of angles between 0 and 180 degrees using a right angle as a benchmark
  • classify angles as acute, right, obtuse or straight
  • identify face, edge, point, and vertex in 3-dimensional shapes
  • find elapsed time to the nearest minute

 

Algebra and Functions:  Students demonstrate knowledge of patterns, change, and generalization; evaluate the missing variable; demonstrate conceptual understanding of equality; and translate from English to algebraic expressions and vice versa.

 

Indicators:  Students will:

  • represent and analyze patterns and linear functions using words, tables, graphs, and algebraic expressions/equations (what happens to the input in order to get to the output)
  • understand the concept of equality
  • use the concept of equality to find the unknown in simple, linear equations

 

Probability and Statistics:  Students organize and interpret data, use measures of central tendency, demonstrate an understanding of the concept of probability and the fundamental counting principle, and determine and use sample space.

 

Indicators:  Students will:

  • collect, construct and analyze data in tables and bar graphs
  • analyze labeled line and circle graphs
  • understand the concept of mean as equalizing data
  • use a list, table or line plot to determine the mode, median, and range of a set of data
  • create a sample space to determine all possible outcomes in a one step situation
  • recognize the difference between experimental and theoretical probability of a particular outcome
  • express the probability of an event as a fraction

 

 

Science, Grade 5-6

 

Note:  In each content area of science, students will use the scientific inquiry skills: questioning, predicting and hypothesizing, designing and doing experiments, recording/representing data, analyzing/explaining data, and using the data (drawing conclusions, applying data to prior knowledge, personal experiences, etc.) The Science Power Standards cover a two-year period from fifth through sixth grade.

The Human Body:  Students use scientific inquiry skills to show and explain that the human body is a unique combination of systems that can be affected by the environment.

Indicators:  Students will:

  • investigate circumstances that affect more than one body system and explain the interconnected relationship between the body systems
  • explain what occurs in the process of fertilization and early embryo development

 

Physical Science:  Students use scientific inquiry skills to show and explain that all living and non-living things are composed of matter having characteristic properties that distinguish one substance from another.

Indicators:  Students will:

  • investigate and explain how the relative volume or mass of an object affects the density of the object

 

Physical Science:  Students use scientific inquiry skills to show and explain that energy is necessary for change to occur.

Indicators:  Students will:

  • predict the effects of heating and cooling on the physical state and the mass of a substance
  • investigate variables that change an object’s speed, directions, or both, and identify and describe the forces that cause change in motion
  • design demonstrations that represent the characteristics of light and sound transfer

 

Life Science:  Students use scientific inquiry skills to show and explain that populations of organisms survive in an ecosystem by maintaining interdependent relationships with one another and using biotic and abiotic resources from the environment, including the sun.

Indicators:  Students will:

  • develop a model for a food web that includes the flow of energy from the sun being transferred to organisms in a local aquatic and local terrestrial environment
  • experiment with a closed system (bottle biology, aquarium terrarium), describe how an environmental change effects the system

 

Life Science:  Students use scientific inquiry skills to show and explain that all living organisms have identifiable characteristics that allow for survival.

Indicators:  Students will:

  • explain that the cell, as the basic unit of life, has the same survival needs as the organism
  • observe plant or animal tissue and explain how “specialized” cells help support the specialized function of tissue (e.g., muscle cells form muscle tissue, skin cells form skin tissue, nerve cells form brain tissue)

 

Earth Science:  Use scientific inquiry skills to show and explain that the universe, earth, and all earth systems have undergone change in the past, continue to change in the present and are predicted to change in the future.

Indicators:  Students will:

  • explain the process of how rocks are formed (The Rock Cycle) and identify examples of geologic changes (slow and fast) on the earth’s surface, where possible in the local environment
  • create a diagram or model of the orbit of the earth around the sun and the moon around the earth

 

Social Studies

Inquiry:  Students design, conduct and present research.

Indicators:  Students will:

  • ask relevant and focusing questions that will lead to independent research
  • develop a hypothesis or research statement by using prior knowledge, relevant questions and facts to develop a prediction or propose an explanation or solution
  • identify tools, tasks, and procedures
  • conduct research using a plan for an inquiry, locating relevant materials, and citing sources
  • support the research statement by organizing and displaying information using appropriate methods (e.g., tables, graphs, timelines, models, etc.)
  • explain how research has led to a clearer understanding of an issue or idea
  • communicate their findings through oral, written, or visual presentations

 

History:  Students connect the past, present, and future through understanding and interpreting history.

Indicators:  Students will:

  • describe ways that life in the United States and/or the world has both changed and stayed the same over time
  • identify different types of primary and secondary sources, and understand the benefits and limitations both bring to the study of history
  • construct time lines of significant historical developments in the nation and world and record events according to the order in which they occurred.

 

Geography:  Students interpret geography and solve geographic problems. 

Indicators:  Students will:

  • use relative location to identify major mountain ranges, major rivers, and major climate and vegetation zones
  • locate the physical and political regions of the United States and the world (e.g., Plains, NE coast, New England, South, West, etc.)
  • identify characteristics of states, countries and continents using resources such as landmarks, models, maps, photographs, atlases, internet, reference materials, GIS and mental mapping
  • describe how people have changed the environment in the U.S. and the world for specific purposes

 

Geography:   Students understand the concept of culture in various places and throughout the world.

 

Indicators:  Students will:

  • identify expressions of culture in the U.S. and the world through analysis of various modes of expression such as poems, songs, stories, paintings and photographs, etc.

 

Government and Society:  Students act as informed citizens who demonstrate an understanding of human interdependence.

Indicators:  Students will:

  • identify problems and propose solutions in the local community
  • describe how rules and laws are created
  • examine issues from more than one perspective; define and defend the rights and needs of others in the community, nation, and world

 

Economics:  Students examine the interconnectedness of individuals and the economy.

 

Indicators:  Students will:

  • trace the production, distribution, and consumption of goods in the U.S.
  • identify goods and services provided by local, state, and national governments and explain why these are needed
  • explain what happens when people’s needs and/or wants exceed their available resources

 

These grade level summaries address the five ACSU Performance Targets for reading, writing, mathematics, science and social studies.  The expectations listed within each Performance Target are based on K-12 ACSU Power Standards, the Vermont Grade Expectations, Vermont Framework of Standards, and ACSU Curricula. For each ACSU Performance Target between four to six components (Power Standards) have been identified as common across K-12.  For each component you’ll find indicators specific to your child’s grade level.