 | | Pat Meuwissen - 5th/6th Grade Teacher |
The 5th and 6th grade students of Horace Mann School are involved in a departmentalized program consisting of four specialty areas: Math, Reading, Writing, and Social Sciences.
The Math curriculum for the 5th grade is Everyday Math. The 6th grade uses 2 math programs. One group is using Everyday Math. The second group is using the Scott Foresman-Addison Wesley, Middle School Math Book, Course 2. Everyday Math students for both 5th and 6th grade focus on the areas of number sense, shapes, space, measurement, and chance and data handling. The other 6th grade group focuses on numbers, computation & estimation, patterns & functions, algebra, statistics & probability, geometry, and measurement.
The core curriculum for Social Science is American History in 5th grade and ancient civilizations in 6th grade. The students at both grade levels also study physical, political, and cultural geography. While the focus of this curriculum is the adopted standards, students at both grade levels will also examine civics, current events, political science, and market economics.
Writing is so important in our lives. It allows us to communicate and compose our ideas and thoughts. Writing helps us understand ourselves and the world around us. Our Writing program is based on balanced literacy methods that are presented through the use of the school district adopted Language Arts Program and the Six Traits of Writing components. A main goal of the program is to help students make strong connections between literature and writing. The six traits we learn about are: ideas and content, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency and conventions. Concrete lessons and writing activities spark students' imagination and interest to write. When students arrive in class they're eager to start writing!
The Reading portion of our program focuses on monthly book projects, library work, journal writing, creative and literature based writing, spelling, and much more...such as Read IN. The books we read include: "Hatchet" by Gary Paulsen; "The Giver" by Lois Lowrey; "Where the Red Fern Grows" by Wilson Rawls; "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" by Mildred Taylor; "Daniel's Story" by Carol Matas; "The Ear, The Eye, and The Arm" by Nancy Farmer; and "Bud, Not Buddy" by Christopher Paul Curtis.
As you can see...there's a lot going on in 5th & 6th grade at Mann!
Pat Meuwissen - 5th/6th Grade Teacher
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