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5th Grade Curriculum
Homeschooling at the fifth grade level might feel daunting. You help your tweens handle their emotions and behaviors, but this is also a great opportunity to connect with your children as they start to use more critical thinking and interact with subjects at a deeper level. These years are a beautiful season of growing and learning. Whatever your course of study, the possibilities for connection are limitless.
With a 5th grade curriculum,, you have several options for History, the foundation of your year. Choose between World History or American History. Once you've made that first choice, you get to choose how in-depth you want to go: Pick up where you ended last year's World History studies, with the fall of Rome? Or choose an overview spanning from creation to modern World History? If you choose American History, you have a similar choice: Early American history? Later American history? A combination? Whatever your choice, your year will be packed with books and biographies that are full of discovery, adventure, growing up, and anecdotes that will make you laugh out loud. It's going to be a great year.


Choose your 5th Grade Homeschool Curriculum
Sonlight offers multiple curriculum packages, each completely customizable to meet your family's needs. Start by choosing one of the three options below, and customize online as desired. Need help choosing? Chat with an advisor.
*Percent off Retail Price. Preschool and Pre-K are unavailable as All-Subjects Packages as they have unique subjects specific to those age spans. A Sonlight History / Bible / Literature program includes a year's worth of history, geography, Bible, Readers, Read-Alouds, and an Instructor's Guide. An All-Subjects Package consists of a History / Bible / Literature program, plus language arts, spelling (K-6), handwriting (K-3), math, science, and a Sonlight binder. Click here for the complete Scope and Sequence.
5th Grade Homeschool Curriculum Packages
Put together a customized program or select the recommended everything-you-need package. Compare your choices and pick the path you want. Either way, a wonderful adventure in learning awaits you and your family. Both History / Bible / Literature Programs and All-Subjects Packages include complete fifth grade lesson plans, schedules, and notes in the included Instructor's Guide.
Start by selecting the program that covers the history focus you'd like to use this year. Because you'll teach with real books, each Sonlight program works with a range of ages and allows you to teach multiple children together. View the full curriculum scope & sequence for additional information. Need help choosing? Chat with a homeschool Advisor.
5th Grade History / Bible / Literature Programs
Whether you choose to dive into lands that are vivid and decidedly other than what we see here, or stick closer to home with a study of American History, you will learn a lot through your fifth grade year.
If you choose World History, you'll see that all over the world, people eat, dress, work, play, and see the world very differently. But we're also the same in key ways: God loves all of us and we all need Jesus. Families all over the world love each other; children like to play, learn and explore; we all have to work hard; we all want to be loved and appreciated; we can all overcome obstacles.
If you choose American History, you'll be introduced to the "go-getters" that expanded our country, brought people together, and created a country that was unlike anything seen before in the "old world" of Europe. This study of American History does touch on the Native cultures that lived here, but, also highlights lesser- known periods, like, why we had cowboys (they needed to transport meat thousands of miles...and, since "efficiency" hadn't even begun as a study, the thing people had was time).
Start with the History / Bible / Literature program of your choice and add additional subjects. History / Bible / Literature programs can be used with multiple children. All History / Bible / Literature programs include a 15% discount off of retail.
5th Grade All-Subjects Package
All-Subjects Packages offer the convenience of an all-in-one boxed curriculum but provide the flexibility of customization for your specific needs or multiple children. And you get all that for a 20% discount!
Additional 5th Grade Homeschool Curriculum Subjects
A Sonlight All-Subjects Package comes with everything that you need for a complete school year. However, if you choose to purchase a History / Bible / Literature program only, you may want to add additional subjects to complete your year.


Science
From a trip through the stars to the technology that took us there, Science E nurtures children’s natural curiosity and provides daily opportunities to explore the world around them. They will use real scientific skills and practices as they explore water, our galaxy, ecology and the flow of energy in an ecosystem. Science E includes a comprehensive introduction to technology and engineering and other STEM topics that will prepare students for a lifetime of scientific curiosity, learning, and application.
Choose the matching 5th Grade Science level (Science E) or browse other available Science programs and see what you could discover.


Math
Sonlight includes Math-U-See Epsilon in our 5th Grade All-Subjects Package. Building on the foundation of basic operations with whole numbers your children have learned, Epsilon covers these same operations with fractions. Fractions are presented in an intuitive way with visual explanations of equivalent fractions, common denominators, and fractions and numbers larger than 1. Fractions and operations are illustrated using Math-U-See's proprietary Fraction Overlay manipulatives.
Your children will learn to recognize and generate equivalent fractions, understand addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of fractions and mixed numbers; as well as how to fluently add, subtract, multiply, and divide fractions and mixed numbers. They will also learn things like how to use multiple strategies to recognize common factors, grouping symbols and their effect on the order of operations, word problems, comparing, and converting decimal fractions, and additional concepts.
Math-U-See is included in Sonlight's All-Subjects Packages, but you can customize it as desired.
Learn about all 5th grade math curriculum options and what topics fifth graders need to master.


Language Arts
Reading and listening to great books, as part of homeschooling with Sonlight, lays a foundation for your children of how good writing feels and sounds. This prepares them for good writing.
This year, students learn to vary sentence length, use active voice, create authentic dialog and more. Dictation exercises provide an opportunity to recognize and imitate writing that shines. Creative expression activities such as mind mapping and letter writing keep them engaged.
All of your Fifth Grade Language Arts assignments are laid out in our Language Arts Instructor's Guide. Each lesson is scripted and includes rubrics (a simple scale so you can easily see where your child is falling on each assignment) in an easy to use format. If you've ever felt intimidated by teaching writing, fear no longer. Mechanics are explained in simple terms, and you can see realistic examples of the type of writing your children should be doing.
In 5th Grade, Sonlight links Language Arts instruction and assignments to the History / Bible / Literature program so, you read and write about events you are learning about them. If your children would benefit from another level, check out all of Sonlight's Language Arts options here.


Handwriting
By Fifth Grade we no longer include a handwriting program in our All-Subjects Package. But, if you would like your children to have more practice, you are able to customize your year and add the handwriting program of your choice. Check out all of your Handwriting options here.


Spelling & Vocabulary
We include Spelling You See's American Spirit as the default spelling for your children's fifth grade year. The Instructor's Handbook contains an introduction to the philosophy behind Spelling You See and the five development stages of spelling. There are 36 lessons and with the Teacher's Guide you will be able to work through the lessons with instruction on guided reading, chunking, copywork, and dictation to improve spelling. We do offer additional spelling resources as desired.


Hands-On & Electives
Help reinforce and document your students’ History studies and provide evidence of learning. This lap book both increases your students’ understanding of history and offers evidence of learning ... plus it makes learning fun!
We provide all of the instructions and materials so your child can independently build their own history book. Our lap books are specifically designed to complement Sonlight’s history programs and they are scheduled as optional activities for our History / Bible / Literature levels D, E, G, and H.
Explore even more electives and enrichment activities here.
Other Products
Consumables
Teaching more than one student and need extra activity sheets? We've got you covered. Shop all consumables here.
Required Resources for 5th Grade Homeschool Curriculum Packages
Required Resources are essential for first-time Sonlighters. These are necessary products for your school year and are included in Sonlight All-Subjects Packages, History / Bible / Literature Programs, and Science packages by default. Visit SmoothCourse™ to remove Required Resources from your 5th grade homeschool curriculum package.
Shop all Required Resources here.