Grade 5
Unit 1: World Lakes
Focus: This unit begins with a review of map skills and geographical terms. Students learn about the benefits and resources provided by lakes, including, in Asia, the Caspian and Aral Seas; in Africa, Lakes Victoria, Tanganyika, and Chad; in South America, Lakes Maracaibo and Titicaca; and, in North America, Lakes Superior, Huron, Michigan, Erie, and Ontario.
Number of Lessons: 7
Lesson Time: 45 minutes each daily. Lessons may be combined into longer sessions.
Additional Search Terms: social studies • geography • map skills • nonfiction • informational text
Unit 2: Maya, Aztec & Inca Civilizations
Focus: This unit begins by placing three ancient Mesoamerican civilizations in geographical context. Students explore ruins of ancient Maya temples and pyramids as they learn about Maya culture, including their knowledge of astronomy and mathematics. Students learn about the warrior culture of the Aztecs and the city of Tenochtitlan, and about the Inca’s complex network of roads and the city of Machu Picchu. Students also learn about the Spanish conquistadors and the demise of the Aztec and Inca, and the mystery of the disappearance of the Maya.
Number of Lessons: 10
Lesson Time: 45 minutes each daily. Lessons may be combined into longer sessions.
Additional Search Terms: social studies • geography • map skills • nonfiction • informational text • primary source documents • codex • archaeology
Unit 3: The Age of Exploration
Focus: This unit introduces students to European exploration and trade from 1400 to the 1600s. Students learn about motivations for European exploration, including profit from the trade of goods such as gold, silk, sugar, and spices, as well as the desire to spread Christianity. Students study specific explorers (Bartolomeu Dias, Vasco de Gama, Pedro Cabral, Columbus, Magellan, and Vasco de Balboa) and learn about their encounters with indigenous peoples. Students also learn about John Cabot and the search for the Northwest Passage, Sir Francis Drake, Jacques Cartier, Samuel de Champlain, and Henry Hudson. Students are introduced to the early slave trade and the beginnings of slavery in the Americas.
Number of Lessons: 12
Lesson Time: 45 minutes each daily. Lessons may be combined into longer sessions.
Additional Search Terms: social studies • geography • map skills • nonfiction • informational text • primary source documents
Unit 4: The Renaissance
Focus: The resources for this unit (The Renaissance) are part of the individual resources titled From the Renaissance to England’s Golden Age. This unit introduces students to the Renaissance, which began in Italian city-states and then spread across much of Europe, impelled by Gutenberg’s printing press. Students learn how artists were supported by patrons, such as the wealthy Medici family, or Pope Julius II for whom Raphael painted frescoes and Michelangelo the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Students are introduced to the lives and works of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, to Castiglione’s writings on courtly behavior, to Machiavelli’s ideas about politics, and to Shakespeare and Cervantes as exemplars of the Renaissance spirit in literature. Students also learn how the Renaissance spread to northern Europe.
Number of Lessons: 23
Lesson Time: 45 minutes each daily. Lessons may be combined into longer sessions.
Additional Search Terms: social studies • geography • map skills • nonfiction • informational text • Erasmus • Botticelli • Brunelleschi • Dürer • El Greco • Elizabeth I
Unit 5: The Reformation
Focus: The resources for this unit (The Reformation) are part of the individual resources titled From the Renaissance to England’s Golden Age. This unit tells the story of the 16th-century religious upheaval known as the Reformation, which led to the founding of Protestantism and had far-reaching social and political consequences. Students learn how Gutenberg’s printing press made the Bible widely available and encouraged the spread of literacy. Students learn what led Martin Luther and John Calvin, the most influential leaders of the Reformation, to protest against the authority of the Catholic Church. Students also learn about the Church’s efforts to reform its practices, known as the Counter-Reformation. Students also explore how the findings of Copernicus and Galileo led to conflicts between science and the Church.
Number of Lessons: 9
Lesson Time: 45 minutes each daily. Lessons may be combined into longer sessions.
Additional Search Terms: Spanish Armada • Sir Francis Drake • Puritans • Parliament • Bloodless Revolution
Unit 6: England in the Golden Age
Focus: The resources for this unit (England in the Golden Age) are part of the individual resources titled From the Renaissance to England’s Golden Age. This unit explores England in the 1500s and 1600s, a time of religious conflicts and political change. Students learn about Henry VIII and the founding of the Church of England. They explore the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, a time of expansion abroad, peace and prosperity at home, and extraordinary literary achievements (including many of the works of Shakespeare). They learn about Charles I and the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans, and the Restoration era under Charles II. Students also learn about the “Glorious Revolution” that put William and Mary on the throne, and the importance of the English Bill of Rights.
Number of Lessons: 23
Lesson Time: 45 minutes each daily. Lessons may be combined into longer sessions.
Additional Search Terms: social studies • geography • map skills • nonfiction • informational text • Erasmus • Botticelli • Brunelleschi • Dürer • El Greco • Elizabeth I
Unit 7: Early Russia
Focus: The resources for this unit (Early Russia) are part of the individual resources titled Czars and Shoguns: Early Russia and Feudal Japan. This unit introduces students to major geographical features of the vast lands of Russia, and tells the story of how Russia grew from a small principality to a large country ruled by powerful czars. Students learn how, after the fall of Constantinople, Moscow emerged as the center of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Students meet Ivan III (the Great) and Ivan IV (the Terrible), who expanded Russian territory and the authority of the czars. Students also learn how Peter the Great and Catherine the Great sought to modernize and westernize Russia.
Number of Lessons: 10
Lesson Time: 45 minutes each daily. Lessons may be combined into longer sessions.
Additional Search Terms: serfs • St. Petersburg • Ural Mountains • Siberia • Volga River • Don River • Kremlin
Unit 8: Feudal Japan
Focus: The resources for this unit (Feudal Japan) are part of the individual resources titled Czars and Shoguns: Early Russia and Feudal Japan. This unit introduces students to the history of feudal Japan. Students first explore how Japan’s geography as an island nation influenced its culture and history, especially its long isolationism. Students learn about the rise of powerful feudal leaders called shoguns, and the role of the soldier-nobles called samurai, who lived by a code known as Bushido. Students also learn how the Tokugawa Shogunate closed Japan to most outsiders, and how Japan remained secluded until European powers and Commodore Matthew Perry of the United States compelled the Japanese to open their doors for trade. Students are also introduced to two important religions in Japanese history, Buddhism and Shinto.
Number of Lessons: 8
Lesson Time: 45 minutes each daily. Lessons may be combined into longer sessions.
Additional Search Terms: Ring of Fire • Pacific Rim • Tokyo • Mt. Fuji • typhoons • haiku
Unit 9: The Geography of the United States
Focus: This unit reinforces map and globe skills as students learn about the geographic characteristics of different regions of the United States: New England, Mid-Atlantic, South, Midwest, Great Plains, Rocky Mountain, Southwest, and West Coast. Students explore each region’s climate, natural resources, culture, and other distinctive characteristics. Some content is tied to the “Pathway to Citizenship,” an array of civics-focused knowledge, questions, and activities.
Number of Lessons: 13
Lesson Time: 45 minutes each daily. Lessons may be combined into longer sessions.
Additional Search Terms: social studies • map skills • nonfiction • informational text • Alaska • Hawaii • Gulf Stream • fifty states and capitals • Caribbean Sea • Gulf of Mexico
Unit 10: Western Expansion
before the Civil War
Focus: This unit explores how and why Americans moved west from the early to mid-nineteenth century. Throughout the unit, students study many geographical features of the U.S. Opening lessons introduce early explorers, including Daniel Boone, Zebulon Pike, and Lewis and Clark, who were aided by Sacagawea. Students learn how new developments in transportation (such as canals, steamboats, and railroads) spurred westward expansion. Students are introduced to Tecumseh as a leader of Native American resistance to settlers and government officials who broke treaties and pushed Native Americans out of their homelands.
Number of Lessons: 10
Lesson Time: 45 minutes each daily. Lessons may be combined into longer sessions.
Additional Search Terms: social studies • map skills • nonfiction • informational text • Louisiana Territory • Continental Divide • Appalachian and Rocky Mountains • Great Plains • Missouri and Mississippi Rivers • Robert Fulton • Erie Canal • Rio Grande • Stephen Austin • General Antonio López de Santa • Sam Houston • The Alamo • Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” • Mountain Men
Unit 11: The Civil War
Focus: This unit explores the causes and consequences of one of our nation’s greatest crises, the Civil War. Students learn how arguments over slavery and states’ rights, and the election of Abraham Lincoln, led to Southern secession and armed conflict. Students consider the influence of Frederick Douglass and other abolitionists, the Dred Scott decision, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and the Emancipation Proclamation.
Number of Lessons: 24
Lesson Time: 45 minutes each daily. Lessons may be combined into longer sessions.
Additional Search Terms: social studies • map skills • nonfiction • informational text • Mason-Dixon Line • John Brown and Harpers Ferry • Lincoln-Douglas debates • Yankees and Rebels • Jefferson Davis • Stonewall Jackson • Robert Gould Shaw and Massachusetts 54th Regiment • William Tecumseh Sherman • Andrew Johnson • Freedmen’s Bureau
Unit 12: Westward Expansion
After the Civil War
Focus: The resources for this unit (Westward Expansion After the Civil War) are part of the individual resources titled Native Americans and Westward Expansion: Cultures and Conflicts. This unit continues the story begun in Unit 10 (Westward Expansion Before the Civil War), and focuses on the causes and effects of the westward movement of Americans in the later 1800s, which often led to conflict with Native Americans displaced from lands they had long inhabited.
Number of Lessons: 7
Lesson Time: 45 minutes each daily. Lessons may be combined into longer sessions.
Additional Search Terms: social studies • map skills • nonfiction • informational text • primary sources • Mark Twain • Golden Spike • telegraph • cattle drives • Chisholm Trail • Great Plains • stagecoach • Billy the Kid • Jesse James • Annie Oakley • Buffalo Bill • manifest destiny • Seward’s Folly • Buffalo Soldiers • Indian Territory (Oklahoma) • U.S. Census
Unit 13: Native Americans:
Cultures and Conflicts
Focus: The resources for this unit (Native Americans: Cultures and Conflicts) are part of the individual resources titled Native Americans and Westward Expansion: Cultures and Conflicts. This unit explores the ways of life of diverse Native American peoples, and goes on to examine how their cultures were disrupted, displaced, and profoundly altered by westward expansion and American government policies and practices in the 1800s.
Number of Lessons: 7
Lesson Time: 45 minutes each daily. Lessons may be combined into longer sessions.
Additional Search Terms: social studies • map skills • nonfiction • informational text • primary sources • Bannocks • Shoshone • Utes • Paiutes • shamans • Coyote tales • hunter-gatherers • Nez Perce • Arapaho • Cheyenne • Tlingits • potlatch • totem poles • Bureau of Indian Affairs • Carlisle School • Indian Wars • Sand Creek Massacre • Battle of Little Bighorn • Crazy Horse • Sitting Bull • Custer’s Last Stand • Wounded Knee • Ghost Dance