What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know: Fundamentals of a Good Fifth-Grade Education
What should your child learn in the fifth grade? How can you help him or her at home? This book answers these important questions and more, offering the specific shared knowledge that thousands of parents and teachers across the nation have agreed upon for American fifth graders. Featuring sixteen pages of illustrations, a bolder, easier-to-follow format, and a thoroughly updated curriculum, What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know is designed for parents and teachers to enjoy with children. Hundreds of thousands of children have benefited from the Core Knowledge Series, and this edition gives a new generation of fifth graders the advantage they need to make progress in school today and to establish an approach to learning that will last a lifetime. Discover:

• Favorite Poems—old and new, from Langston Hughes’s “I, Too” to Lewis Carroll’s famous nonsense poem “Jabberwocky”
Literature—from around the world, including Native American stories, Japanese tales, and condensed versions of classics, from Don Quixote to Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Learning About Literature—the rules of written English, pats of speech, literal and figurative language, common sayings and phrases, and a brief introduction to researching and writing a report
World and American History and Geography—explore latitude and longitude; Aztec, Inca, and Maya civilizations; European history during the Age of Exploration, the Renaissance, and the Reformation; and American history topics, including the Civil War, westward expansion, and the struggle of Native Americans
Visual Arts—art from around the world, from Renaissance paintings to American landscapes to Japanese gardens, with discussions of Leonardo da Vinci, Michaelangelo, and Botticelli—along with more than twenty reproductions.
Music—the basics of understanding, appreciating, and reading music, plus great composers from Beethoven to Mendelssohn and an introduction to African-American spirituals
Math—stimulating lessons, including percentages, number sense, long division, decimals, graphs, and geometry—as well as a quick introduction to pre-algebra
Science—fascinating discussions of taxonomy, atoms, the periodic table, human growth stages, plants, life cycles and reproduction—plus short biographies of famous scientists such as Galileo
1139612730
What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know: Fundamentals of a Good Fifth-Grade Education
What should your child learn in the fifth grade? How can you help him or her at home? This book answers these important questions and more, offering the specific shared knowledge that thousands of parents and teachers across the nation have agreed upon for American fifth graders. Featuring sixteen pages of illustrations, a bolder, easier-to-follow format, and a thoroughly updated curriculum, What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know is designed for parents and teachers to enjoy with children. Hundreds of thousands of children have benefited from the Core Knowledge Series, and this edition gives a new generation of fifth graders the advantage they need to make progress in school today and to establish an approach to learning that will last a lifetime. Discover:

• Favorite Poems—old and new, from Langston Hughes’s “I, Too” to Lewis Carroll’s famous nonsense poem “Jabberwocky”
Literature—from around the world, including Native American stories, Japanese tales, and condensed versions of classics, from Don Quixote to Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Learning About Literature—the rules of written English, pats of speech, literal and figurative language, common sayings and phrases, and a brief introduction to researching and writing a report
World and American History and Geography—explore latitude and longitude; Aztec, Inca, and Maya civilizations; European history during the Age of Exploration, the Renaissance, and the Reformation; and American history topics, including the Civil War, westward expansion, and the struggle of Native Americans
Visual Arts—art from around the world, from Renaissance paintings to American landscapes to Japanese gardens, with discussions of Leonardo da Vinci, Michaelangelo, and Botticelli—along with more than twenty reproductions.
Music—the basics of understanding, appreciating, and reading music, plus great composers from Beethoven to Mendelssohn and an introduction to African-American spirituals
Math—stimulating lessons, including percentages, number sense, long division, decimals, graphs, and geometry—as well as a quick introduction to pre-algebra
Science—fascinating discussions of taxonomy, atoms, the periodic table, human growth stages, plants, life cycles and reproduction—plus short biographies of famous scientists such as Galileo
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What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know: Fundamentals of a Good Fifth-Grade Education

What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know: Fundamentals of a Good Fifth-Grade Education

What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know: Fundamentals of a Good Fifth-Grade Education

What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know: Fundamentals of a Good Fifth-Grade Education

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Overview

What should your child learn in the fifth grade? How can you help him or her at home? This book answers these important questions and more, offering the specific shared knowledge that thousands of parents and teachers across the nation have agreed upon for American fifth graders. Featuring sixteen pages of illustrations, a bolder, easier-to-follow format, and a thoroughly updated curriculum, What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know is designed for parents and teachers to enjoy with children. Hundreds of thousands of children have benefited from the Core Knowledge Series, and this edition gives a new generation of fifth graders the advantage they need to make progress in school today and to establish an approach to learning that will last a lifetime. Discover:

• Favorite Poems—old and new, from Langston Hughes’s “I, Too” to Lewis Carroll’s famous nonsense poem “Jabberwocky”
Literature—from around the world, including Native American stories, Japanese tales, and condensed versions of classics, from Don Quixote to Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Learning About Literature—the rules of written English, pats of speech, literal and figurative language, common sayings and phrases, and a brief introduction to researching and writing a report
World and American History and Geography—explore latitude and longitude; Aztec, Inca, and Maya civilizations; European history during the Age of Exploration, the Renaissance, and the Reformation; and American history topics, including the Civil War, westward expansion, and the struggle of Native Americans
Visual Arts—art from around the world, from Renaissance paintings to American landscapes to Japanese gardens, with discussions of Leonardo da Vinci, Michaelangelo, and Botticelli—along with more than twenty reproductions.
Music—the basics of understanding, appreciating, and reading music, plus great composers from Beethoven to Mendelssohn and an introduction to African-American spirituals
Math—stimulating lessons, including percentages, number sense, long division, decimals, graphs, and geometry—as well as a quick introduction to pre-algebra
Science—fascinating discussions of taxonomy, atoms, the periodic table, human growth stages, plants, life cycles and reproduction—plus short biographies of famous scientists such as Galileo

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780804180405
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Publication date: 11/13/2013
Series: The Core Knowledge Series
Sold by: Random House
Format: eBook
Pages: 384
File size: 31 MB
Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

E. D. Hirsch, Jr., is an emeritus professor at the University of Virginia and the author of The Knowledge Deficit, The Schools We Need, and the bestselling Cultural Literacy and the Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. He and his wife, Polly, live in Charlottesville, Virginia, where they raised their three children.

Linda Bevilacqua is the president of the Core Knowledge Foundation and was responsible for the development of the Core Knowledge preschool program that is now being used in over 1,200 preschool classrooms across the country. She and her husband, Jean-Jacques, live in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Read an Excerpt

What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know, Revised Edition


By E. D. Hirsch, Jr.

Random House

E. D. Hirsch, Jr.
All right reserved.

ISBN: 0385497210


Chapter One

Introduction

This chapter presents poems, stories, and sayings, as well as brief discussions of language and literature.

The best way to introduce children to poetry is to read it to them and encourage them to speak it aloud so they can experience the music of the words. A child's knowledge of poetry should come first from pleasure and only later from analysis. However, by fifth grade, children are ready to begin learning a few basic terms and concepts, such as metaphor and simile. Such concepts can help children talk about particular effects that enliven the poems they like best.

The stories in this book are excerpts, abridgments, and adaptations of longer works. If a child enjoys a story, he or she should be encouraged to read the larger work. Don Quixote and stories about Sherlock Holmes are available in child-friendly versions as part of the Foundation's Core Classics series. You can draw children into stories by asking questions about them. For example, you might ask, "What do you think is going to happen next?" or "What might have happened if . . . ?" You might also ask the child to retell them. Don't be bothered if the child changes events: that is in the best tradition of storytelling and explains why we have so many different versions of traditional stories!

The treatments of grammar and writing in this book are brief overviews. Experts say that our children already know more about grammar than we can ever teach them. But standard written language does have special characteristics that children need to learn. In the classroom, grammar instruction is an essential part, but only a part, of an effective language arts program. Fifth graders should also have frequent opportunities to write and revise their writing -with encouragement and guidance along the way.

For some children, the section on sayings and phrases may not be needed; they will have picked up these sayings by hearing them in everyday speech. But this section will be very useful for children from homes where American English is not spoken.

For additional resources to use in conjunction with this section, visit the Foundation's Web site: coreknowledge.org.

POETRY

A Wise Old Owl
by Edward Hersey Richards

A wise old owl sat on an oak,
The more he saw the less he spoke;
The less he spoke the more he heard;
Why aren't we like that wise old bird?


The Eagle
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.


From Opposites
by Richard Wilbur

What is the opposite of riot?
It's lots of people keeping quiet.

. . .

What is the opposite of two?
A lonely me, a lonely you.

. . .

The opposite of doughnut? Wait
A minute while I meditate.
This isn't easy. Ah, I've found it!
A cookie with a hole around it.

. . .

The opposite of a cloud could be
A white reflection in the sea,
Or a huge blueness in the air,
Caused by a cloud's not being there.

. . .

The opposite of opposite?
That's much too difficult. I quit.


The Road Not Taken
by Rober t Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.


Excerpted from What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know, Revised Edition by E. D. Hirsch, Jr. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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