5^th Grade Syllabus

Mother Teresa of Calcutta Catholic School

2023-2024 School Year

            Mrs. Elizabeth Nessler                                                         Mrs. Sheila Galvis

       enessler@mtctampa.org                              sgalvis@mtctampa.org 

Welcome to fifth grade! Our goal as fifth grade teachers is to guide the students in a faith filled journey to live in the image and likeness of God while providing a rigorous curriculum that will enhance and develop skills and concepts in all academic areas. Students will do this through a variety of activities including analysis of text, writing workshop, and hands-on learning. Please keep this syllabus to refer to with any questions throughout the year. E-mail is the best way to reach us, and we will make every attempt to respond within 24-48 hours during the school day. We are looking forward to a fabulous year with you and your child! Please note that we are all about to embark on an unchartered safari ride through an exciting jungle of learning that will look different for all of our 5^th grade kids! Please be patient and understanding as our safari ride is one that we have never experienced before and there may be a lot of twists and turns along the way, but if we work together, we will all arrive at our destination as we cross the bridge to middle school.

SUBJECT: Literature & Language Arts

Literature

Textbook: Houghton Mifflin Journeys                                            

Reading Course Division

First Trimester: Sequencing events, elements of plot, character traits, setting, context clues, poetry, figurative language, compare/contrast characters, formal and informal language, story structure, irony, point of view, theme, narrative pacing, cause and effect, author’s  purpose, analyzation and evaluation, quotes and description, conclusions and generalizations, main ideas and details, domain-specific vocabulary, infer/predict, summarize, and visualize through details.

Second Trimester:  Historical Fiction, determining fact from fiction, Compare and contrast main characters, character map, theme, compare details in novel to history, character motivation, infer and make predictions, context clues, geography, investigate the historical events of the book, point of view, elements of plot, simile, personification, metaphor, symbolism, hyperbole, idiom, analogy, onomatopoeia , pun, story details, author’s purpose, text evidence,  and time period vocabulary.

Third Trimester: symbolism, character maps, plot elements, themes, quotes, analysis and evaluation, character motives, author’s purpose, cause and effect, images, compare and contrast characters, text evidence, making conclusions, map the setting, answer central questions, analyze character feelings, idioms, adages, context clues.

Additional Vocabulary

Textbook: Sadlier Vocabulary Workshop Level Blue (Consumable)

Writing and Grammar

Textbook:  Sadlier Grammar Workshop & Cursive Handwriting Practice Book (Consumable)

                    The Theory and practice of writing will be taught using the 6 + 1 Traits and Writing

Writing:

               Narrative

             Expository                                          

              Persuasive

English Grammar Course Division

First Trimester: Writing sentences correctly, capitalizing proper nouns and proper adjectives abbreviations, titles, commas, parts of a letter, quotations, words often misspelled, and words often misused

Kinds of sentences, complete subjects and predicates, simple subjects and predicates, subjects in imperative sentences, compound subjects, compound predicates, simple and compound sentences, complex sentences sentence fragments and run-ons

Second Trimester: Common and proper nouns, singular and plural pronouns, irregular plural nouns, possessive nouns, and appositives, action verbs, direct objects, present tense, past tense, future tense, linking verbs, verb phrases, main verbs, helping verbs, progressive forms of verbs, perfect tenses, inappropriate shifts in verb tense, irregular verbs, contractions, misused verbs

Third Trimester: adjectives, articles, demonstrative adjectives, comparing with adjectives, comparing using the words good and bad, adverbs, using good, well, real, and very, negatives, conjunctions, prepositions,  prepositional phrases, subject pronouns, object pronouns, using I and me, we and us, possessive and demonstrative pronouns, relative pronouns, relative adverbs, contractions with pronouns, writing sentences correctly

Spelling

Textbook: Reader’s Notebook (Consumable)

Small Group Instruction for Reading:

Students will be placed in small group instruction for reading using  STAR Reading data combined with analyzing academic classroom performance data. The small group instruction is fluid throughout the school year so students may be moved to a different reading group based on the individual progress in the classroom. The object of small group instruction is to meet the individual needs of each of my students so that they become stronger and more independent readers who are able to analyze text and become inferential thinkers while strengthening foundational reading skills needed for middle school.

SUBJECT: SCIENCE

Textbook: Elevate Science (Consumable)

Science Course Division

First Trimester:  Reasons to classify, energy in food, process plants use to make their own food, ecosystems, organisms within ecosystems, changes within ecosystems, matter and energy transfer within ecosystems, inner solar system, outer solar system, the sun and the stars, Earth’s gravitational forces, Earth’s movements in space, and patterns over time

Second Trimester:  The hydrosphere, Earth’s natural resources, Earth’s energy resources, Earth’s systems, Protection of Earth’s resources and environments, biosphere, atmosphere, Interactions among Earth’s systems, water cycle, freshwater, ocean water

Third Trimester:  Properties of matter, observing matter, states of matter, physical change, chemical change, mixtures, and solutions, compounds and elements, measuring properties, finding a surface area, finding volume, conductors of heat and electricity, atomic theory, finding mass

SUBJECT: MATHEMATICS  

Textbook: Sadlier Math Hard Back

                  Sadlier Workbook (Consumable)

Online Resource: Sadlier Connect (information will be given during the first full week)

Mathematics Course Division  

First Trimester: Order of operations; Division; Operations with Fractions

Second Trimester:; Operations with Fractions; Operations with Decimals

Third Trimester: Measurement including conversion of units; Volume; Geometry; Data & Statistics; Coordinate Plane; Introduction to Algebra enrichment.

SUBJECT: SOCIAL STUDIES

Textbook: Pearson Social Studies My World Grade 5-Building Our Country (Consumable)

Social Studies Course Division

First Trimester:  Geography and Map Skills, The First Americans, Age of Exploration, Settling the Colonies

Second Trimester:  Life in the Colonies, The American Revolution, A New Nation

Third Trimester:  Life in the Young Republic, Westward Expansion, Civil War and Reconstruction

SUBJECT: CHRISTIAN FORMATION

Textbook: We Believe

Christian Formation Division

First Trimester:  Mission of the Church, Living as prayerful people, Baptism

Second Trimester: Reconciliation, Eucharist, Advent, Anointing of the Sick

Third Trimester: Holy Orders, Matrimony, Family Life

Homework & Grading

• Will be given Monday-Thursday
• Will consist of practice sheets/pages, reading or studying for upcoming assessments
• Student’s responsibility to record it in the planner every morning from Teams and/or board and make any potential changes that may occur during the day
• Will be checked regularly but will be recorded as an ATL in the absence of it

Formative & Summative Assessments

Formative

• Account for 30% of the grade
• Examples, but not limited to, include:
  • • Quizzes
    • Entrance and/or Exit Tickets
    • Class Assignments
• Study guides for Spelling quizzes

Summative

• Accounts for 70% of the grade
• Students will receive test dates and study guides in Social Studies, Science, Religion and Vocab at least a week in advance notice of the summative. Dates will be posted on the Parent Portal in RenWeb and on Educator Pages.

Retake Policy:

  * Students who score lower than an 80% on a summative assessment, may retake that assessment.

  *The highest grade possible that a child can receive on a retake is an 80%.

  * Student can only take a total of 3 retakes per trimester.

  *Students will complete their Retakes afterschool on the designated day. Student athletes may complete their retakes in the morning.