Mrs. DaCosta’s Grade 5/6 Class
Curriculum at a Glance
September & October
Welcome to our Grade 5/6 class! This classroom update be sent home every couple of
months to inform you as to what your child has been and will be learning in class. Please use
it to communicate with your child about their learning, and to assist them if there is a need. I
will also post it on our school’s website as a back up to the hard copy. It can be found at
www.dpcdsb.org/learning/classroom. Click on our class 5/6, and you will find our updates
there. The following is an outline of what we will be focusing on for the months of
September and October.
Math
Numeration (Grade 5): Students are learning to read, represent, write, compare and order
numbers to 100,000, and decimal numbers to hundredths.
Numeration (Grade 6): Students are learning to read, represent, write, compare and order
numbers to 1,000,000, and decimal numbers to thousandths.
Patterning (Grade 5): Students will determine, through investigation using a table of values,
relationships in growing and shrinking patterns, and investigate repeating patterns involving
translations.
Patterning (Grade6): Students will describe and represent relationships in growing and
shrinking patterns (where the terms are whole numbers), and investigate repeating patterns
involving rotations.
Language Arts
Reading & Writing: Students will continue to read independently every day, and begin their
reading responses in their journals. In their journal, students will retell the main idea of their
book (or chapters they have read), reflect on the meaning and lessons learned from the text,
and relate the plot, characters, or parts in the story to their own lives in some way. Students
will be focusing on 2 genres of writing; research report writing and biography writing. They will
read a variety of texts that demonstrate these styles of writing, and then create their own texts
that reflect this style. Students will also complete CASI, a reading assessment tool used in the
junior and intermediate grades. Students will read different types of texts, and then use their
knowledge of comprehension strategies (summarizing, main idea, questioning) to discuss and
write about the text.
Oral: Students will practice speaking skills and strategies to appropriately communicate with
different audiences for a variety of purposes. Students will demonstrate these skills while
presenting a variety of assignments in family life, social studies, and in math.
Media: Students will create a variety of media for a variety of purposes. They will create a
poster to promote our Thanksgiving Food Drive, design a book jacket for our class read aloud
“Run” by Eric Walters, and they will create their own CD playlist and CD cover our their personal
soundtrack.
Science
Human Organ Systems (Grade 5): In this unit, grade 5 students will demonstrate an
understanding of the structure and function of human body systems, and the interactions
between these systems. We will specifically investigate the respiratory system, the circulatory
system, digestive and skeletal system.
Biodiversity (Grade 6): In this unit, grade 6 students will investigate the characteristics of living
things, and classify diverse organisms according to specific characteristics. They will also assess
human impact on biodiversity, and identify ways of preserving biodiversity.
Family Life
Created and Loved by God: In this first theme of our Fully Alive program, students will read and
discuss stories of God’s everlasting love which started when he created us. We will discover
how each person’s life is a journey, with changes and different stages along the way; from the
time we are born, till the end of our lives. We will also focus on recognizing the wonderful
contributions that other people make in our lives.
Religion
Believing: In this first theme we will discuss the important of vows in our everyday lives.
Students will compare common vows and promises (marriage, before testifying in court, etc.) to
the way we profess the Creed in the Sacrament of Baptism and to promises we make when we
recite the Apostles Creed.
Health
Healthy Living: We will begin our unit of healthy eating. Students will learn how to use nutrition
facts tables and ingredient lists on food labels to make healthier personal food choices. We will
also discover how medical, emotional, practical and societal factors influence eating habits and
food choices (e.g., allergies, cultural influences, media influences, etc.).