Grade 5-6 Multi-age Classroom

About:

Larry Da Costa wrapped up his 19th year as an educator this past June, and his third as a member of the LCS community. He is grateful he gets to learn and grow alongside so many great children and adults daily. Outside of school, Larry loves to run, ride his bike, and spend time outdoors with his family.

Dan Greenleaf joined LCS as a part-time math teacher/math interventionist after many years teaching in Waitsfield. Dan also coaches boys soccer at Saint Michael’s College.

Classroom Resources:

Laurindo “Larry” Da Costa

ldacosta@lincolnsd.org

Curriculum

Theme

Humanities

Year 1: Themes in American History

  • Identity and Community

  • Geography and Early Societies of the Western Hemisphere

  • European Exploration

  • The American Revolutionary War

  • The U.S. Civil Rights Movement

  • Performance and Collaboration

Year 2: Themes in Eastern Hemisphere History 

  • Identity and Community

  • Character Change and Short Stories

  • Geography of the Eastern Hemisphere

  • First Humans and the Neolithic Revolution

  • Early River Valley Civilizations

  • Classical Civilizations

  • Performance and Collaboration

Science

Year 1

  • Scientific thinking and practices

  • Life Science

    • Forest ecology

    • Human body systems

  • Physical Science

    • Energy and Machines

Year 2

  • Scientific thinking and practices

  • Earth Science

    • Weather Patterns

    • Sun, Earth, and Space Systems

  • Physical Science

    • Heating and Cooling

Literacy

Reading

  • Determining the main idea and supporting details

  • Analyze character development, setting, plot in literary texts

  • Apply active reading strategies (questioning, annotating, making predictions, etc…)

  • Paraphrasing, retelling , and summarizing text

  • Cite textual evidence to support inferences and analysis

  • Reading fluency

  • Read and comprehend a range of literary genres and informational texts

Writing

  • Respond to a variety of prompts with clear, organized ideas

  • Construct well-developed paragraphs

  • Argument writing

  • Information writing

  • Narrative writing

  • Revision and editing of writing

Language

  • Conventions of standard English (grammar, usage, punctuation, spelling)

  • Academic and domain-specific vocabulary

  • Determine meanings of unfamiliar words

  • Use knowledge of language and its conventions when speaking in a variety of ways

Math

Fifth Grade Math

  • Understand and apply concepts of volume

  • Multiplication and division of fractions

  • Add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators

  • Perform operations with decimals to the thousandths (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division)

  • Multiply and divide multi-digit whole numbers

  • Graph points on the coordinate plane

  • Classify 2D shapes based on their properties (parallel sides, angle types, symmetry)

  • Convert measurement units within the same measurement system. 

  • Represent and interpret data, including line plots with fractional units

Sixth Grade Math

  • Understand relationships among factors, multiples, divisors, and products

  • Classify numbers as prime, composite, even, odd, square,e and cubed

  • Recognize situations that call for common factors and situations that call for common multiples

  • Develop strategies for finding factors and multiples, including L.C.M and G.C.F.

  • Learn and apply the rules of divisibility

  • Understand fractions and decimals as numbers that can be located on a number line, compared, counted, partitioned, and decomposed

  • Expand interpretations of a fraction to include expressing a fraction as a part-whole relationship, as a number, and as an indicated division

  • Use multiple interpretations of proper fractions, improper fractions, and mixed numbers

  • Use decimals to represent fractional values with attention to place value

  • Determine when addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division is the appropriate operation to solve a problem

  • Represent unknown real-world and abstract values with variables

  • Use place value to develop an understanding of algorithms and to relate operations with decimals to the same operations with fractions

  • Develop standard algorithms for multiplying and dividing decimals 

  • Solve problems using all four operations on decimals