Fifth-grade students will apply a variety of reading comprehension strategies to enhance understanding of text. They will continue to develop an appreciation for literature by reading a variety of fiction and nonfiction selections across content areas. Students will use online, print, and media resources to prepare presentations. In addition, students will plan, draft, revise, and edit to describe, entertain, and explain. All aspects of literacy will be taught through a balanced literacy framework for instruction, enabling all students to become independent and strategic readers, writers, thinkers, and communicators.

In fifth-grade mathematics, problem-solving strategies, logical reasoning skills, and algebraic thinking skills continue to be developed and refined. Work continues with numbers and operations on whole numbers, decimals, and fractions. Students explore topics in measurement, geometry, data analysis, and probability. The Virginia Standards of Learning provide the foundation for fifth-grade mathematics.

In fifth-grade accelerated mathematics, the basic skills that students have acquired are extended. The ideas pertaining to operations on numbers, elementary number theory, geometry, measurement, statistics, probability, patterns and functions are refined and expanded. These topics, along with an introduction to algebraic symbolism prepare students for pre-algebra. Some fifth-grade and all sixth-grade Mathematics Standards of Learning for Virginia are covered in this course.

The fifth-grade standards emphasize the importance of selecting appropriate instruments for measuring and recording observations. The organization, analysis, and application of data continue to be an important focus of classroom inquiry. We focus on sound and light and the tools used for studying them. Matter, including atoms, molecules, elements, and compounds, are studied, and the properties of matter are defined in great detail. The cellular makeup of organisms and the distinguishing characteristics of groups of organisms are stressed. Students created video Public Service Announcements on protecting the watershed.

The fifth-grade students learn about the geography of the world including North America. They learn about the fascinating middle ages, plus World War I and II. Students are expected to read grade level text and complete independent projects with minimal directions.