Welcome to 5^th Grade
 

Virgina Keating-Miller: 5th Grade Teacher
B.A. Education Concordia College Bronxville, 1999
M.S. Education Iona College New Rochelle NY 2003
Teaching at Thornton-Donovan since 2002

Students receive instruction in Math, Reading Language Arts, Social Studies and Science on a daily basis. Physical Education, Music, Art and Foreign Languages are on a rotating schedule, which meets at least twice a week.

 

MATH: Students develop fluency with both multiplication and division of decimals, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing of fractions and mixed numbers. Students can analyze and solve word problems with mixed operations. In addition to the textbook, students also make use of IXL.com to help develop their fluency.

READING: Students begin using direct quotes from texts to explain and prove ideas about the reading. Read a variety of genres including fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama. Students use details from the text to summarize the author's purpose, identify the main idea, themes and characters. Students make use of different aspects of figurative language. Students also use text evidence to support their ideas and will be able to identify and compare multiple perspectives of events, ideas and themes.

LANGUAGE ARTS: (Writing, Grammar, Vocabulary) Students learn the different parts of speech more extensively and can put it into practice to write well-developed sentences and paragraphs. Students move from a three-paragraph model to writing more extensively in a five-paragraph essay, composed with a well-developed, topic - body -conclusion format Students are able to write narrative, expository and opinion pieces. Students learn the meaning of different prefixes and suffixes to expand their vocabulary.

SOCIAL STUDIES: The students begin a sequential journey from Pre - history in North America to the Revolutionary War to the Civil War and beyond. They explore inventors, the impact of their inventions, and the expansion of the U.S.A.  

SCIENCE: The year is divided in 3 major sections - Physical science (matter, forces and motion) - Life science (growth, survival and ecosystem) - Earth Science (water, weather, Earth and space)

ITALIAN: Students learn similar topics to Italian 2/3, but with a heavier emphasis on grammar and memorizing conjugations and vocabulary in language learning. Students write a short composition.

SPANISH: Students learn similar topics to Spanish 2/3, but with a heavier emphasis on grammar (potentially learning -ar verbs) and memorizing conjugations and vocabulary in language learning. Students write a short composition.

FRENCH: Students are introduced to the basic French grammar and conjugation. They discover the numbers, the colors, nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Telling time, travelling, describing the weather, and playing sports are also included in the curriculum.

TECHNOLOGY: Students are taught introduction to computer hardware & software. This includes the following: hardware components necessary to understand and build a computer - Major Operating Systems such as Windows, Mac OS and Linux - Google Application Suite such as Docs, Sheets, etc. - Introduction to Cloud Technology - IP addressing, Binary & Hexadecimal numbers - Different type of hackers such as Ethical, Black-Hat & Gray-Hat - Introduction to the World Wide Web.

MUSIC: We continue the instruction with interactive drum circles, instrument playing and note reading, as well as exposure to more thematic aspects of the year. We incorporate instruments and songs, as well as some complicated dances from around the world.

ART: Guided watercolor paintings, crayon/watercolor resist paintings, mixed media watercolor and acrylic, "melted" magic marker painting, simple palette knife technique in acrylic painting, mixed media watercolor and pen work, model magic sculpting, more advanced origami folding techniques. .