5th Grade Science

Our family has made the very complicated, personal decision to home school my oldest for the 2020-2021 School year (see other 5th grade curriculum choices here). As a previous science teacher, I am writing my own "curriculum" for our 5th grade home school this year. I used the 16 5th grade Next Generation Science Standards as the basis, both because I have experience using those standards and because I believe in them. Since I was figuring this out anyway, I decided to go ahead and make the answer keys so that I could share.

Some notes:
The national standards focus on science content, but also science and engineering practices and cross cutting concepts. These practices are an integral part of each standard, which means curriculum and assessment might look a little different than it did when I was a student. Assessments do not have to be a regular "test." Sometimes they will be a lab or a model a student draws of their understanding of an idea.

I tend to like students to do something to interact with concepts before being "taught" them. That is why I try to do exploration or reading before slides. Seeing patterns on their own and asking questions on their own means they are more likely to remember things!

Also, this is curriculum I, a science teacher, wrote for my academically advanced son. Plus, I was not present for his previous years of school science, so do not know what gaps he may have. In many places, will go way more in depth than just doing the minimum to meet the standard. If you choose to use my resources, please keep that in mind. There are plenty of places it would be easier to go lighter or more in depth. Feel free to message me about anything you feel needs clarification or more explanation.

I am still writing the units. As I finish I will share my outline of activities, my slides and both Google Doc and PDF versions of the materials.


Unit 1: Matter and Its Interactions

• Standards: 5-PS1-1, 5-PS1-2, 5-PS1-3, 5-PS1-4
• Some resources that that could be used with this unit:

 

Unit 2: Gravity

• Standards: 5-PS2-1, 3-5-ETS1-1, 3-5-ETS1-2, 3-5-ETS1-3
• Some resources that could be used with this unit:

Unit 3: Sun and Earth

• Standards: 5-ESS1-1, 5-ESS1-2
• Some resources that could be used with this unit:

Unit 4: Earth's Spheres

• Standards: 5-ESS2-1, 5-ESS2-2
• Some resources that could be used with this unit:

Unit 5: Ecosystems

• Standards: 5-LS1-1, 5-LS2-1, 5-PS3-1
• Some resources that could be used with this unit:

Unit 6: Earth and Human Activity

• Standards: 5-ESS3-1
• Some resources that could be used with this unit:

Science Research Journal

I plan on doing about a unit a month. However, since they will not all take that long and there are more months and units, I will also have Xander do a Science Research Journal. This is more self led. More details and printables will on this post.