This parent guide supports parents in helping their child at home with the 5th grade ELA content.

In this lesson, students read Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco to identify words that are unfamiliar to them. Working collaboratively in small groups, they discuss the meaning of these new words, using context clues from the text, prior knowledge, and both print and online resources. Students then apply their knowledge of the new vocabulary to further their understanding of the text.

This lesson employs direct instruction and small-group discussion to help students learn new vocabulary skills while reading Patricia Polacco?s Pink and Say.

What drives changes to classic myths and fables? In this lesson students evaluate the changes Disney made to the myth of "Hercules" in order to achieve their audience and purpose.

Tradition in the Lakota Sioux involves giving a name to a child based on his actions, so a young child who moves slowly in all he does earns the name ‘Slow’ from his family. After demonstrating bravery and determination during battle he then earns a new name, Sitting Bull, and this same man later becomes the respected chief of the Lakota Sioux. In this CCSS lesson students will explore Sitting Bull's life through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

How do cells keep us alive? Through reading and hands-on activities, students learn about parts of a cell, and their functions in carrying out processes for life. Study skills are taught and modeled as students make entries in science notebooks.

As a way to support teachers with English Language Arts (ELA) instruction during the pandemic, the NCDPI ELA team created choice boards featuring standards-aligned ELA activities.The intended purpose of these choice boards is to provide a way for students to continue standards-based learning while schools are closed. Each activity can be adapted and modified to be completed with or without the use of digital tools. Many activities can also be repeated with different texts. These standards-based activities are meant to be a low-stress approach to reinforcing and enriching the skills learned during the 2019-2020 school year. The choice boards are to be used flexibly by teachers, parents, and students in order to meet the unique needs of each learner.Exploration activities are provided for a more self-directed or guided approach to independent learning for students. These activities and sites should be used as a way to explore concepts, topics, skills, and social and emotional competencies that interest the learner. 

In the essay “Mother Tongue,” Amy Tan explains that she “began to write stories using all the Englishes I grew up with.” How these “different Englishes” or even a language other than English contribute to identity is a crucial issue for adolescents.
In this lesson, students explore this issue by brainstorming the different languages they use in speaking and writing, and when and where these languages are appropriate. They write in their journals about a time when someone made an assumption about them based on their use of language, and share their writing with the class. Students then read and discuss Amy Tan's essay “Mother Tongue.” Finally, they write a literacy narrative describing two different languages they use and when and where they use these languages.

Students will identify why and how Feynman started to look at the world through the eyes of a scientist. Students will both learn how memoirs can be as deeply revealing as fiction and how to unpack the meaning of a first person narrative.

This cross-curricular lesson combines Social Studies and Language Arts to demonstrate how the study of an historical topic can be developed to make learning nonfiction more exciting, and also improve fluency and comprehension. This project about Benjamin Franklin includes a series of lessons in which the students: 1) read for information from multiple texts, 2) write a script for a Readers Theater play, 3) read for expression and fluency by using their script, 4) enhance their reading with visual arts, and 5) demonstrate dramatic interpretation through role-play. This approach engages students throughout in active participation and collaboration. Included are many supporting resources, such as a read-aloud rubric, an audition sheet, and ideas for student assessment and reflection.

This unit is designed for students to learn to make judgments and decisions based on facts, and to use informational and imaginative speech to present their personal viewpoint and opinion to others. Students experience, first hand, taxation without representation, and will develop a very real sense for the need to preserve the inherent freedoms of man. Using the American flag as a graphic organizer, students will develop a clear understanding of the actions and reactions of the American colonists to British rule and to our most important national holiday, the 4th of July. Historically significant events will be studied and organized through exploration of facts and opinions and interaction with informational text and class discussion.

This lesson teaches students to select personalized vocabulary words based on their interests and aspects of their everyday lives. Students work in groups to discuss and create their own vocabulary word lists and research their meanings. They create a "My World of Words Journal" with definitions and proper usage information and participate in an interactive journal share to receive feedback from their classmates.

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 5th Grade ELA. 

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 5th Grade English Language Arts. 

This resource accompanies our Rethink 5th Grade ELA course. It includes ideas for use, ways to support exceptional children, ways to extend learning, digital resources and tools, tips for supporting English Language Learners and students with visual and hearing impairments. There are also ideas for offline learning. 

Students can view this educational musical video to learn about interjections and develop new ways to include then when speaking and writing.

Wonderopolis is a free informational site that asks and answers interesting questions about the world. Wonders of the Day questions are posted daily, and each is designed to get kids to think, talk, and find learning moments in everyday life.

In this lesson, students are challenged to come up with new words based on their relationship to vocabulary words they are currently studying.