Summary of Skills

Unit 1: Africa and Asia [SS]

Social Studies

• Analyze changes which have occurred in communities past and present.
• Analyze similarities and differences among families in different times and places.
• Analyze various types of maps and globes.
• Compare economic and social roles of children and adults in the local community to selected communities around the world.
• Compare ways in which people in the local community and around the world meet their needs.
• Describe how individuals, events, and ideas change over time.
• Describe similarities and differences among communities in different times and in different places.
• Describe variations in the physical environment including climate, landforms, natural resources, and natural hazards.
• Identify and compare people's characteristics living in selected regions.
• Identify and compare the people's characteristics living in selected regions.
• Recognize diverse leaders, past and present, who demonstrate responsible citizenship.
• Use appropriate source maps to locate communities.
• Use geographic terminology to describe variations in the physical environment of communities.

Unit 1: Stories from Africa and Asia [LA]

Language Arts

• Analyze characters, including their traits, feelings, relationships, and changes.
• Answer open-ended questions.
• Compare experiences of characters across cultures.
• Compose a draft that conveys major ideas and maintains focus on the topic.
• Compose a variety of written products, including letters.
• Conduct research by gathering information from a variety of sources.
• Connect experiences and ideas with those of others through speaking and listening.
• Connect personal experiences with the life experiences, language, customs, and culture of others.
• Consider a character's point of view
• Develop vocabulary through reading.
• Draw conclusions, make generalizations, and gather support by referencing the text.
• Extend vocabulary through word study.
• Identify (with assistance) the purpose, the audience, and the appropriate form for the oral or written assignment.
• Identify and discuss similarities and differences in events, characters, concepts, and ideas within and across selections and support them by referencing the text.
• Identify areas of further study when reading text.
• Identify the conflict in a story.
• Identify the purpose, audience, and appropriate form for a written task.
• Interact with text by making predictions and drawing connections.
• Locate information for specific purposes.
• Make predictions about text.
• Practice different kinds of questions and tasks, including test-like comprehension questions.
• Present information in a sequenced, logical manner.
• Read from a variety of genres to acquire information.
• Read independently to build background knowledge.
• Read orally from familiar texts with fluency (accuracy, expression, appropriate phrasing, and attention to punctuation).
• Read silently and orally from text.
• Recognize the number of syllables in a word.
• Recount or narrate.
• Relate plot, setting, and characters to own experiences.
• Represent text information in different ways, including story maps, graphs, and charts.
• Respond to stories and poems in ways that reflect understanding (in discussion, in writing, and through movement, music, art, and drama).
• Share information and ideas.
• Share written, oral, and constructed projects in a variety of ways.
• Summarize the plot or major events of a story.
• Sustain conversation on a topic.
• Use oral and written language to present information in a sequenced, logical manner.
• Use planning strategies to organize ideas.
• Use the correct verb tense when writing sentences.
• Use word reference materials (e.g. dictionary, glossary) to confirm decoding skills, verify spelling, and extend meanings of words.
• Use written language to report information on a topic.
• Write in different forms, such as poetry, for different purposes.
• Write to record ideas and reflections.

Science

• Differentiate between groups and species of animals.
• Identify habitats and the living things that exist there.
• Recognize types of scientists and the jobs that they do.
• Recognize types of scientists and the jobs they do.

Social Studies

• Analyze similarities and differences among families in different times and places.
• Compare traditions that reflect cultures, regions, and customs.
• Describe similarities and differences among communities in different times and in different places.
• Distinguish and compare the roles of children and adults in the local community to selected communities around the world.

Unit 2: Rocks and Minerals [S]

Language Arts

• Make oral and written presentations using visual aids with an awareness of purpose and audience.
• Use planning strategies to generate topics and organize ideas (e.g., brainstorming, mapping, webbing, reading, discussion).

Science

• Communicate the uses of rocks and minerals.
• Conduct tests, compare data, and draw conclusions about physical properties of matter.
• Describe and evaluate the properties of earth materials.
• Describe and evaluate the properties of several minerals.
• Discuss the uses of rocks and minerals.
• Draw conclusions about past events using fossils or charts and tables.
• Explain how rocks are composed of minerals.
• Identify and analyze forces that cause change in landforms over time.
• Identify and describe the importance of earth materials, including rocks.
• Identify effects of events and long-term changes including growth, erosion, dissolving, weathering, and flow.
• Recognize that minerals have a chemical composition and structure, resulting in specific physical properties including hardness, streak color, and magnetism.
• Show that different rocks and minerals have different properties.

Unit 2: Holes [LA]

Language Arts

• Analyze characters, including their traits, feelings, relationships, and changes.
• Compare communication in different forms, such as a dramatic performance and a print version of the same story.
• Compile notes into outlines, reports, summaries, or other written efforts using available technology.
• Compose readable text in a variety of forms.
• Consider a character's point of view.
• Describe how the setting affects the characters and plot of a story.
• Draw conclusions, make generalizations, and gather support by referencing the text.
• Gain new insight into text by using evaluative processes.
• Identify and describe irony within text and situations.
• Identify and discuss similarities and differences between concepts and ideas.
• Identify and discuss similarities and differences in events and characters.
• Identify relevant questions.
• Identify similarities and differences among characters and stories.
• Identify the correct use of homonyms in context.
• Identify the correct use of homophones in context.
• Identify the musical elements of literary language, including rhymes, repeated sounds, or instances of onomatopoeia.
• Identify the problem, climax, and solution of a story.
• Know the meaning of simple prefixes and suffixes.
• Make inferences and draw conclusions about characters.
• Put story events in proper sequence.
• Recognize and use adverbs correctly.
• Recognize and write similes and metaphors.
• Recognize distinguishing features of familiar genres, including stories, poems, and informational texts.
• Recognize sentence fragments and run-on sentences.
• Recognize types of story conflict within novels.
• Relate plot, setting, and characters to personal experiences.
• Share written products in a variety of ways.
• Summarize written text.
• Take simple notes from relevant sources such as classroom guests, books, and media sources
• Take simple notes from relevant sources such as classroom guests, books, and media sources.
• Underline and capitalize book titles.
• Understand how to use an index and a table of contents within a book.
• Use correct capitalization and punctuation.
• Use effective oral communication.
• Use figurative language in writing.
• Use logical thinking and reasoning to solve problems.
• Use oral and written language to answer open-ended questions.
• Use oral and written language to report information on a topic.
• Write for a wide variety of audiences.
• Write in different forms for different purposes such as lists to record, letters to invite or thank, and stories or poems to entertain.
• Write personal and formal letters that include date, proper salutation, body, closing, and signature.
• Write to record ideas and reflections.

Science

• Create models to represent inventions.
• Identify and discuss different rocks, including their role in geologic formations and distinguishing geologic regions.
• Identify and record properties of soils such as color and texture, capacity to retain water, and ability to support the growth of plants.
• Observe and describe how environmental conditions determine how plants survive and grow.
• Observe and describe the habitats of organisms within an ecosystem.

Social Studies

• Analyze changes, which have occurred in communities past and present.
• Describe how individuals, events, and ideas change over time.
• Describe similarities and differences among communities in different times and places.

Unit 3: Europe [SS]

Social Studies

• Analyze changes which have occurred in communities past and present.
• Analyze similarities and differences among environments and communities in different places.
• Compare ways in which people in the local community and communities around the world meet their needs for government, education, communication, transportation, and recreation.
• Describe how individuals have contributed to the expansion of communities or the creation of new communities.
• Describe how individuals, events, and ideas change over time.
• Describe how individuals, events, and ideas have changed communities over time.
• Describe similarities and differences among communities in different times and places.
• Draw maps of places and regions.
• Explain the significance of selected ethnic or cultural contributions.
• Identify individual writers and artists and their stories, poems, statues, paintings, and other examples of cultural heritage from communities around the world.
• Identify reasons people formed communities, including a need for security, law, and material well-being.
• Recognize historical times in terms of years, decades, and centuries.
• Use appropriate source maps to locate communities.
• Use geographic terminology to describe variations in the physical environment as communities.

Unit 3: Stories from Europe [LA]

Language Arts

• By the end of year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, in the grades 4–5 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.
• Compare and contrast the point of view from which different stories are narrated, including the difference between first- and third-person narrations.
• Demonstrate understanding of words by relating them to their opposites (antonyms) and to words with similar but not identical meanings (synonyms).
• Differentiate between contexts that call for formal English (e.g., presenting ideas) and situations where informal discourse is appropriate (e.g., small-group discussion).
• Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text, including what happened and why, based on specific information in the text.
• Form and use prepositional phrases.
• Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which related ideas are grouped to support the writer's purpose.
• Make connections between the text of a story or drama and a visual or oral presentation of the text, identifying where each version reflects specific descriptions and directions in the text.
• Orient the reader by establishing a situation and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally.
• Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
• Provide a conclusion that follows from the narrated experiences or events.
• Read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, in the grades 4–5 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.
• Recall relevant information from experiences or gather relevant information from print and digital sources; take notes and categorize information, and provide a list of sources.
• Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
• Use a comma before a coordinating conjunction in a compound sentence.
• Use a comma to separate items in a series and to separate equal adjectives.
• Use concrete words and phrases and sensory details to convey experiences and events precisely.
• Use dialogue and description to develop experiences and events or show the responses of characters to situations.
• With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, and editing.
• Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.