Fifth Grade Social Studies Content Standards

Fifth grade students are expected to:

United States History and Geography: making a new nation

• Age of exploration
  • Learn about the European exploration of North America, including:
  • Aims, obstacles, reasons, and accomplishments of the explorers and technological advances of the time
  • Routes of the major explorers, and land claimed by European nations
• Interaction among the American Indians, between the American Indian nations and the new settlers, and among the new settlers
  • Gain a sense of the competition and cooperation that existed between and among these groups, including:
  • The conflicts before the Revolutionary War (e.g., the French and Indian War, the Powhatan Wars in Virginia)
  • Injustices that led to the Indians’ defeat (e.g., the story of the Trail of Tears)
  • The influence and achievements of significant leaders of the time (e.g., Abraham Lincoln, John Marshall, Andrew Jackson, Chief Tecumseh, Chief Logan, Chief John Ross, Sequoyah)
• The Colonial era
  • Understand the political, religious, social, and economic institutions of the time, including:
    • The influence of location, physical setting, and already existing American Indian nations on the founding of the original thirteen colonies
    • The religious aspects of the colonies (e.g., Puritanism, Anglicanism, Catholicism, Quakerism, the First Great Awakening)
    • The development of a political self-government (e.g., representative assemblies, town meetings)
    • The creation of a free market economy
    • The influence and achievements of significant leaders of the time (e.g., John Smith, Roger Williams, William Penn, Lord Baltimore, William Bradford, John Winthrop)
    • Describe the introduction of slavery into America, the responses of slave families to their condition, the ongoing struggle between proponents and opponents of slavery, and the gradual institutionalization of slavery in the South.
      
• The Revolutionary period
  • Understand the causes, course of, and consequences of the American Revolution, including:
    • How political, religious, and economic ideas and interests brought about the Revolution (e.g., the implementation and resistance to the Stamp Act, Townshend Acts, tea on tax, Coercive Acts)
    • The significance of the first and second Continental Congress, the Committees of Correspondence, and the Declaration of Independence
    • Identifying and mapping the major battles and campaigns of the Revolutionary War, including the roles of the American, British, French and Indian leaders - its personal, social, and economic impact
    • How state constitutions served as models for the U.S. Constitutions
    • The influence and achievements of significant men and women of the time (e.g., King George III, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Abigail Adams, Martha Washington, Phillis Wheatly, Molly Pitcher, Mercy Otis Warren, Marquis deLafayette, Kosciuszko, Baron von Steuben)
• U.S. Constitution
  • Understand the development and significance of the U.S. Constitution as the foundation of the American republic, including:
    • The shortcomings set forth by the Articles of Confederation
    • The fundamental principles of democracy, how the government derives its power from the people, the importance of individual liberty and how it’s secured by both empowering and limiting central government
    • The exploration of the meaning of American citizenship
• Westward expansion
  • Trace the colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800’s, including:
    • European immigration, their modes of transportation, and their settlement of the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys between 1789 and 1850 (e.g., overland wagons, canals, flatboats, steamboats)
    • Identifying the states and territories in 1850, including major geographical features)
    • The explorations of the West and the experiences on the overland trails to the West (e.g. location of the routes, purpose of each journey, influence of the terrain, and life at the end of these trails)
    • Mexican migration into Mexican territories of the West and Southwest, and how and when California, Texas, Oregon, etc. became part of the U.S. (e.g., Texas War for Independence, the Mexican-American War)
    • The influence and achievements of significant leaders of the time (Henry Clay, John Calhoun, Lewis & Clark, Zebulon Pike, John Fremont, Daniel Boone)
• U.S. Geography
  • Understand the current geography of the United States
    • know the location of the fifty states and the names of their capitals

[ Up ] [ Literacy ] [ Mathematics ] [ Science ] [ Social Studies ] [ Visual Arts ] [ Library ] [ Music ] [ Technology ]