Health and Wellness, grade three, grade four, and grade five focuses on how students can assume more responsibility for their health, develop positive health behaviors, and prevent negative, unhealthy behaviors. Acceptance of differences in individual growth and development as well as strategies to prevent the use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs are included as part of a planned, sequential, comprehensive health education curriculum that uses the Indiana Academic Standards for Health and Wellness to support student development of essential health skills within the ten health content areas. Health education at this level includes the development of a wider range of skills, enhanced knowledge, and an increased emphasis on attitudes conducive to a healthy lifestyle. Opportunities to apply knowledge and skills are provided through interactive instructional strategies and activities.

In grade five, students will continue to analyze, develop, model, and refine coping, decision-making, and interpersonal skills as they relate to adolescent growth and development, disease prevention, stress management, and other health-related areas. 

Language Arts, grade five, based on Indiana Academic Standards for English/Language Arts, is integrated instruction emphasizing writing, speaking and listening in interest and age-appropriate content. Students increase their vocabulary, including those that convey ideas and images, for reading and writing. Using discussion, reading, writing, art, music, movement, and drama, students respond to classical and contemporary literature. Students deliver oral responses to literature that demonstrate an understanding of ideas or images communicated by what they have read. The writing process is used during composition development. Students write multiple-paragraph compositions for different purposes and audiences, revising their writing as appropriate. Students use transitions to connect ideas when they write, and they use the conventions of Standard English in their written communications. Students listen to stories read aloud and write independently for meaning.

Mathematics, grade five standards are made up of six strands: Number Sense; Computation; Algebraic Thinking; Geometry; Measurement; and Data Analysis. The skills listed in each strand indicate what students in grade five should know and be able to do in Mathematics. grade five students multiply and divide multi-digit whole numbers; compare fractions, decimals and common percent's; and students add and subtract uncommon fractions and operate on decimals to the hundredths with all four operations. Students classify polygons and find the perimeter and area of triangles, parallelograms, and trapezoids. Students evaluate simple algebraic expressions and use coordinate grids to represent points in the first quadrant that fit linear equations. Students apply formulas to find the volume of right rectangular prisms. Students understand and use measures of central tendencies for data. Using the Process Standards for Mathematics in a planned and deliberate method to present the Mathematics content standards will prescribe that students experience mathematics as a coherent, useful, and logical subject that makes use of their ability to make sense of the mathematics.

Reading and Literature, grade five, based on Indiana Academic Standards for English/Language Arts, is integrated instruction emphasizing interesting and age-appropriate content. Students develop reading competencies as they receive instruction founded on scientifically-based reading research with a focus on fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Students increase their vocabulary and their ability to understand and explain words, including those that convey ideas and images. Students use word origins to determine the meaning of unknown words or phrases. Students increase their use of complex reading comprehension strategies. Students begin to do literary criticism by evaluating what they read and locating evidence to support what they say. Students read and respond to fiction selections, such as classic and contemporary literature, historical fiction, fantasy or science fiction, folklore or mythology, poetry, and plays, and nonfiction selections, such as subject-area books, biographies or autobiographies, children’s magazines or periodicals, various reference and technical materials, and online information. Students self-select books and read independently for enjoyment.

Incorporating the crosscutting concepts, disciplinary core ideas, and science and engineering practices, students in grade five develop models of particles, provide evidence of changes of states of matter, identify materials based on their properties, investigate gravity on Earth, and describe that energy on Earth comes from the sun. Students will argue that plants get their energy from water and air, and they will describe movement of matter in the environment. They will investigate the brightness of the sun and stars due to their distance from Earth, how the parts of the atmosphere interact, and they will describe how communities use science to protect the Earth.

Students in grade five study the United States, focusing on the influence of physical and cultural characteristics on national origins, growth, and development up to 1800 through a formal exploration of United States history, geography, economics, government, current events, and cultural heritage. Emphasis should be placed upon study of Native American Indian cultures, European exploration, colonization, settlement, revolution against British rule, the founding of the Republic, and the beginnings of the United States. Students also learn to describe the major components of our national government and to demonstrate responsible citizenship in the classroom and school setting. Through active learning experiences at the fifth-grade level, students’ increasing interest in the ability to gather and organize data enables them to explore the physical and cultural characteristics of the United States and its neighbors. Students benefit from working and sharing in flexible groups so that they can become actively involved in “how-to” demonstrations. Their natural interest in science, geography, and travel set the stage for experience involving maps, memorabilia, collections, simulations, educational games, group-planned projects, first-person presentations, and school and community experiences.