Grade 5 · printable course

Matter, Systems, and the Sky: Grade 5 Science

Grade 5 · 333 pages · 72 lessons · PDF, print at home

This is a year of science built around one big idea: everything is made of tiny particles you can't see, and those particles don't just vanish, they move around, combine, and rearrange, but the total amount stays put. Your child uses that one idea to explain four very different things over the year: why sugar water still weighs what it should, why rust is different from melting ice, where a tree's mass actually comes from, and why some water is drinkable and some isn't. The last quarter of the year zooms out to Earth as a whole system, then out further to the sun and stars, reusing the same vocabulary the whole way. Almost everything is testable with stuff already in your kitchen, a scale, a balloon, sugar, a flashlight.

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What is inside

Every unit and lesson in this book, in order. The same lessons are taught online at lettersanddevotion.com, so a family can move between paper and screen.

Matter, Systems, and the Sky: Grade 5 Science

72 lessons · try a lesson online free

Unit 1: Matter Is Made of Particles Too Small to See9 lessons
  1. 1.The particle composition of matter
  2. 2.States of matter: solid, liquid, gas
  3. 3.Air as space-occupying matter
  4. 4.Weight of gases
  5. 5.Relative particle spacing across states of matter
  6. 6.Evaporation explained by particle escape into air
  7. 7.The term 'particle' in context
  8. 8.Conservation of particles when matter appears to disappear
  9. 9.Main claim and evidence in an informational text about gases
Unit 2: Where Did It Go? Conservation of Matter in Mixtures and Dissolving9 lessons
  1. 10.The particle model of matter from Unit 1
  2. 11.Conservation of weight during dissolving
  3. 12.The distinction between mixtures and solutions
  4. 13.Conservation of matter during dissolving, explained by particles
  5. 14.The balance-weighing procedure for a before/after conservation test
  6. 15.Matching a separation method to a mixture type
  7. 16.A before/after weight data set from a dissolving trial
  8. 17.Conservation of weight applied to an unmixed, untaught combination
  9. 18.Reversibility as a shared property across mixtures and solutions
Unit 3: Physical or Chemical? Sorting Changes in Matter9 lessons
  1. 19.The definition of physical change as same-substance change, applied to novel examples
  2. 20.The definition of chemical change as new-substance formation, applied to novel examples
  3. 21.The substance-identity test applied to demonstrated changes
  4. 22.The insufficiency of a single piece of evidence (color) for classifying change type
  5. 23.The independence of change type from reaction speed
  6. 24.The four categories of observable evidence for chemical change
  7. 25.Conservation of matter during a sealed chemical reaction
  8. 26.Physical versus chemical classification of novel household examples
  9. 27.Written justification distinguishing dissolving from true chemical change
Unit 4: Following Matter Through Plants, Animals, and Ecosystems9 lessons
  1. 28.The raw materials and observable inputs of photosynthesis
  2. 29.The labeled parts of a photosynthesis diagram (inputs, outputs, and new substance)
  3. 30.The source of a plant's added mass during growth
  4. 31.Photosynthesis and decomposition as instances of chemical change
  5. 32.Matter movement through a producer-consumer-decomposer chain
  6. 33.The distinction between energy flow and matter cycling in an ecosystem
  7. 34.The fate of matter in decomposing organic material
  8. 35.The source of a growing bean plant's mass, as a claim-evidence-reasoning argument
  9. 36.Matter movement during decomposition of an unfamiliar organism
Unit 5: Earth as a System: Land, Water, Air, and Life Interacting9 lessons
  1. 37.The four Earth systems, their names, and example items belonging to each
  2. 38.Features of a landscape sorted by Earth system
  3. 39.Boundaries where two Earth systems meet in a landscape photo
  4. 40.Evaporation as a matter exchange between hydrosphere and atmosphere
  5. 41.Matter and energy exchange across systems during a rainstorm
  6. 42.The general pattern of cross-system cause and effect, compared across two cases
  7. 43.The first Earth system directly affected by a specified human activity
  8. 44.System-interaction effects of a volcanic eruption
  9. 45.A shared claim across two texts about human impact on Earth systems
Unit 6: Where Is Earth's Water? Distribution and the Water Cycle10 lessons
  1. 46.The proportion of Earth's water that is ocean salt water
  2. 47.The four water cycle stage names as presented on the taught diagram
  3. 48.Categories of Earth's water reservoirs by salinity and state
  4. 49.Graphed percentages of Earth's water reservoirs
  5. 50.Evaporation as water particles moving into the air as invisible vapor
  6. 51.The four-stage water cycle sequence applied to a new diagram layout
  7. 52.Water movement between hydrosphere, atmosphere, and geosphere
  8. 53.A scaled liquid model of Earth's water distribution
  9. 54.A written scarcity claim grounded in a proportional water model
  10. 55.Transfer of water between reservoirs under a changed condition
Unit 7: The Sun's Energy and Earth's Patterns8 lessons
  1. 56.The sun as Earth's primary energy source for weather and the water cycle
  2. 57.Earth's rotation as the cause of the day/night cycle
  3. 58.The distinction between Earth's daily rotation and yearlong revolution
  4. 59.A season's sunrise/sunset time data table
  5. 60.The causal link between Earth's motion and seasonal day-length patterns
  6. 61.Common claims about the cause of day/night and seasons
  7. 62.Trend extrapolation in sunrise-time data
  8. 63.An unfamiliar city's seasonal daylight-pattern data set
Unit 8: Brightness, Distance, and Patterns in the Night Sky9 lessons
  1. 64.The definition of apparent brightness
  2. 65.The relationship between the sun's brightness and its distance from Earth
  3. 66.The joint effect of distance and true brightness on apparent brightness
  4. 67.Proportional scale distance between the sun and the nearest star
  5. 68.Rotation versus orbit as distinct motions with distinct sky effects
  6. 69.The yearly recurrence of constellation visibility
  7. 70.The causal argument connecting apparent brightness, true brightness, and distance
  8. 71.Sky observations sorted by underlying Earth motion
  9. 72.The apparent-brightness-versus-distance claim, presented orally

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