Intermediate

Art

Communication Arts

The Intermediate Division Communication Arts curriculum strives to inspire its fourth and fifth grade students to discover their written and oral voices and their unlimited potential in reading, writing, and presenting. 

Fourth- and fifth-grade students examine and use language in detail, including correct spelling and decoding of Greek and Latin root words and affixes; high-interest words and sentence types; and age-appropriate grammar.

Intermediate students will also develop skills and strategies to comprehend, analyze, and evaluate fiction, poetry, and drama, as well as nonfiction texts.  These skills include reading fluency, accuracy, and expression, practiced through reading aloud to self, peers, and teacher.  Strategies include making and analyzing connections between text to self and text to world through discussion and writing.

Fourth- and fifth-grade students synthesize their knowledge of language and their reading comprehension to produce written and oral work that follows multi-step directions, utilizes the 6+1 traits of writing, and demonstrates a clear viewpoint.  Students write essays, prepare presentations for their peers, and create projects that demonstrate their abilities and the specific skills and strategies targeted.
 

Library

Math

Kindergarten through Eighth Grade students learn basic math concepts through the use of the Investigations and Envision Math Series by Pearson. This provides consistent terminology, vocabulary, and processes for students to aid in the continuity of the mathematics program. 

However, instructors utilize multiple resources needed to best meet the learning styles and needs of each individual student, while ensuring that mathematics objectives and standards are taught. 

Fourth Grade utilizes math journals to demonstrate learning. These journals provide an interactive resource for students to utilize. The curriculum in 5th grade focuses on 6th-grade concepts with a heavy emphasis in fractions and decimals to provide students with a firm foundation for 6th-grade pre-algebra.

Music

Fourth and fifth grade participate in Music class for forty minutes twice a week. Students divide their time composing, applying theory on instruments, accompanying themselves, and listening to and classifying different genres of music. This training continues and is built upon throughout the rest of their musical careers at Oakhill. They perform in two musicals and at Grandparents’ and Special Friends’ Day. The fourth grade has their own choir club that meets on Tuesdays after school from 3:30 p.m. until 4:15 p.m. as well, in the south building. This is a no-audition choir that meets once a week after school for the first semester.

Physical Education

Science

Fourth Graders come to the science lab five times a week to participate in meaningful, hands-on experiments and activities that involve problem-solving and real-life applications. They strengthen their understanding of the scientific method building on their skills of observation, hypothesizing, conducting experiments, measuring and recording data, and drawing conclusions. During our Meteorology unit, students create various weather instruments to test outdoor conditions. They then use data to create a three-day forecast for a particular city. During our Human Body unit, students learn about the major bones and systems of the body by creating a life-size human body using recycled materials. Other major units include Outer Space, Natural Disasters, and Inventions. 

Social Studies

In fifth grade, students learn about city planning and the relationship between citizens and their local government. They study state government and then begin their exploration of American history. Beginning with pre-Columbian North America, students are exposed to the history of indigenous peoples, the discovery of our continent, and the crafting of our nation. Their journey through US history culminates in a study of the Revolutionary War and the forming of the Constitution. Fifth grade’s international focus is on the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, India, Egypt, and China.

Spanish

Fourth Grade: Students continue to further develop skills and take a deeper look at describing themselves and others. Introduction to the Spanish speaking countries throughout the world and related cultural celebrations/traditions.

Students will strengthen verb skills, increase independent counting goal to 1,000, describe family members/people in detail, learn the difference in 2 of the Spanish language’s most important verbs. Students will research the history and significance of a country’s flag. Students will also study a region of Spain in depth.

Students will increase the use of Spoken Spanish, work with auditory comprehension, and increase the streamlining of using Spanish in the classroom.

Various units covering family, food, holidays/traditions, likes/dislikes, differences in which/how to use key verbs and much more.

Fifth grade: Upon entering 5th grade, students increase responsibility and Spanish exposure with weekly assignments using an online language learning tool. This tool/website requires students to complete unit lessons each week (as assigned by Oakhill teacher). The outside of class exposure keeps a student’s momentum going forward and strengthening their skills thus increasing their confidence.

Units throughout the year will build on listening, speaking, and reading comprehension skills regarding ways to express ‘likes and dislikes’, basic conversation phrases/comments, articles, nouns, and adjectives, school-associated environment, increased verb exposure, reading short novels, expanding vocabulary in various units, culture and traditions of Spanish speaking countries, and increasing the independent year-end counting goal to prepare them for stating populations, years, etc.

Storytelling activities will provide additional exposure to more complex verb tenses such as preterite and imperfect. Storytelling involves a circling technique that allows students to learn in a fun and silly manner.

Students will also learn the location and capitals of Spanish speaking countries throughout the world while focusing on the largest populations within the United States of America.

Techbrary (Technology)

Intermediate Division students are eager to put their knowledge of technology to full use through our 1 to 1 iPad program. Students utilize technology in all subject areas, providing for full integration of technology in their education. All 4th - 5th grade students participate in dedicated technology classes that focus on age-appropriate digital citizenship, covering privacy, cyberbullying, online safety, plagiarism, and social media.   Formal technology instruction also includes applying and expanding skills with presentation tools, wikis, blogging, movie making, podcasting, computer-aided design software and computer programming.

Oakhill is committed to providing our students with authentic, relevant and collaborative digital experiences.  As part of this commitment, students have the opportunity to become Techsplorers on Twitter, taking advantage of an authentic audience and giving them a genuine opportunity to create their digital footprint. Using a supervised account, students share their stories in their words, determining what they feel is important to share. Each student signs their tweet, providing a way for each individual voice to be heard. In doing so, students experience the realization that their voice has a true impact on the world around them.  Oakhill also actively participates in several global events including International Dot Day, Character Day, the Global Read Aloud, Hour of Code and the Invent It Challenge, all giving students authentic opportunities to build their essential 21st-century skills as they connect, communicate and collaborate with classrooms around the world.