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

In this lesson, traditional stories of the Native peoples (i.e., narrative text) introduce students to the study of animals in Alaska (i.e., expository text). Students use the Internet to listen to a Yu'pik tale told by John Active, a Native American living in Alaska. They also use online resources to find facts about animals in Alaska. Students compare and contrast the two types of text in terms of fiction and nonfiction. The narrative stories provide students with a context to begin studying a content area topic; this lesson emphasizes the integration of curriculum.

This independent project provides students who have demonstrated mastery of required material to extend their knowledge and understanding of the role of American women over time. Working from a model (A Street Through Time), students create a visual history of women’s changing roles. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

In this lesson, students evaluate the changes Disney made to the myth of "Hercules." By creating a plot diagram of the “real” myth, students hone in on critical differences. They then document these changes in a Venn diagram and discuss the role of audience and purpose in Disney’s decisions through the Think-Pair-Share strategy. Finally, students evaluate the changes for themselves in a summary and critique writing activity.

In this lesson, students will make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections after reading In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson. Students gain a deeper understanding of a text when they make authentic connections. After reading the novel, the instructor introduces and models the strategy of making connections. After sharing and discussing connections, students choose and plan a project that makes a personal connection to the text.

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.

In this unit, students explore Colonial America through the building of timelines and investigating primary and secondary sources. This study of significant events in the colonization of North America and the aspects of everyday life in Colonial America is designed for students to gather, record, and organize their own Colonial Notebook. Students will take on the role of colonist in a given region and work with other 'colonists' of the same region to develop a report and presentation. The study will take students through the life and times of those early settlers and will have them preparing a colonial meal representative of their region of focus

In this lesson, students participate in read-alouds and discussions about memories and family. After this exploration, students brainstorm questions to ask family members in order to learn more about important and/or memorable family events. Once students determine a list of questions, they interview family members, taking notes on the events and giving each a positive or negative rating. Using their interview notes, students create a graphic family timeline which includes illustrations or photographs.

During this lesson, students compare and contrast economic factors in the US colonies/states of the 1780’s and present day US. The students explore and discuss issues and problems related to these factors as they compare and contrast these two time periods. This lesson gives students a context for understanding the development of our government as they learn about the time period in which it was first developed and discuss the problems that the founders faced. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

In this lesson, students use comprehension skills to discuss and respond to questions about a text.

In this lesson, students use comprehension skills to discuss and respond to questions about a text.

This lesson gives learners the chance to delve deeply in to the lives of the Founding Fathers and Mothers to discover the personal characteristics that enabled them to become leaders and revolutionaries. This would be a good assignment for students who compact out of a portion of a unit on early American history. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

Research the Country – students will become more familiarized with their global region of study by researching a country in North America. This lesson was developed by Tia Gilliam as part of their completion of the North Carolina Global Educator Digital Badge program. This lesson plan has been vetted at the local and state level for standards alignment, Global Education focus, and content accuracy.            

Students will use the knowledge they have gained from the previous lessons to determine a problem faced by the Haitians that they can try to solve. They will then create an invention to help solve that problem. Students will present their inventions to the class in a Powerpoint, poster, or another media outlet. Presentations should be no more than five minutes in length. This lesson was developed by Erin Plummer as part of their completion of the North Carolina Global Educator Digital Badge program. This lesson plan has been vetted at the local and state level for standards alignment, Global Education focus, and content accuracy.

This will be a culminating project that reviews what students have learned and investigated so far with Haiti. Students are to take one of the problems or difficulties the people of Haiti might have encountered and develop a plan, in this case an invention, to help solve this problem. Students do not have to necessarily create the invention, but must develop a plan for their invention. Students will then present their idea or invention to the class through a poster, powerpoint, imovie, or another source of media outlet. This lesson was developed by Marissa Piersanti as part of their completion of the North Carolina Global Educator Digital Badge program. This lesson plan has been vetted at the local and state level for standards alignment, Global Education focus, and content accuracy.            

In this lesson students will make the connections between poverty and high death tolls in earthquakes. Students will understand that the effects of natural disasters are worse in impoverished places than in wealthy places. Students will compare and contrast the effects of an earthquake that hit Haiti to an earthquake that occurred in San Francisco. Students will examine graphs to obtain information in order to make the connections between poverty and high death tolls. Students will complete this activity by creating a diagram/poster/collage that demonstrates things that make the United States safer from earthquakes than in countries who are not as wealthy. This lesson was developed by Christina Hartzell as part of their completion of the North Carolina Global Educator Digital Badge program. This lesson plan has been vetted at the local and state level for standards alignment, Global Education focus, and content accuracy.

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.

It is important that students learn how to search safely online. Students will get an introduction to safe search engines, including MeL (Michigan e-Library.org), to find ways to search safely for information. Students will also review how using key effective keywords will give them better results.

This lesson shows students the value of using multiple sources to gather information, using the topic of the Sun.

In this lesson using Ben’s Dream, a picture book by Chris Van Allsburg, students highlight ten major landmarks of the world: the Statue of Liberty, Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Parthenon, the Sphinx, St. Basil’s Cathedral, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, and Mount Rushmore. After reading and discussing Ben’s Dream, students identify the landmarks shown in the book and examine photographs of them. Working in small groups, students select one landmark to research. Using their research skills, students locate these famous landmarks, conduct further research on them, publish their findings using an online tool, and share that information with the class.