Welcome to Fifth Grade!

ELA:

Module 1, Unit 1: Building Background Knowledge — Human Rights

In this unit, your child is reading the novel Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan alongside the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The story follows Esperanza, a young girl from a wealthy family in 1930s Mexico who is forced to flee to California and face difficult new circumstances. As students read, they learn what human rights are, how they can be threatened, and how fictional characters' experiences help us understand real-world issues.

Along the way, your child is building key reading skills: reading challenging texts closely, figuring out unfamiliar vocabulary, identifying main ideas, summarizing, and participating in text-based discussions about what they've read. By the end of the unit, they'll take part in a discussion analyzing how characters in the novel face threats to their human rights.

Try This at Home:

Ask your child, "What human right did Esperanza lose or see threatened in today's chapter?" Then follow up with, "Do you think that's something all people should have? Why?" This mirrors the close-reading and discussion work happening in class and keeps the conversation going beyond the school day. If your child is interested, you can even explore a kid-friendly version of the UDHR together at youthforhumanrights.org.

Illustrative Math:

Unit 1: Finding Volume

What this unit is about: In this unit, students explore volume — the amount of space inside a 3-D object. They build on what they already know about area (flat space) and extend that idea to three dimensions.

Section A — Unit Cubes and Volume Students learn that volume is measured in unit cubes (tiny cubes that are 1 unit on each side). They start by counting cubes to find volume, then discover they can multiply the cubes in one layer by the number of layers. For example, a prism with 5 layers of 24 cubes has a volume of 

5×24=120

5×24=120 cubic units.

Try This at Home!

Near the end of the unit, grab some small boxes from around the house (cereal box, shoe box, tissue box) and ask your fifth grader:

1. "Can you estimate the volume of this box?" — Have them measure the length, width, and height in inches or centimeters and multiply to find the volume in cubic units.
2. "Can you find two different ways to calculate it?" — They can either multiply all three side lengths (l × w × h) or find the area of the base first and then multiply by the height.
3. "What if we stacked two boxes together — how would you find the total volume?"

Questions that may be helpful as they work:

• Can you explain or show me how you found the volume?
• How did you know you needed that number?
• How are these two boxes alike? How are they different?