2024 - 2025 Class 5 Language Arts
Join a Lotus & Ivy Waldorf-trained teacher for a year of explorations in literature, writing, grammar, and spelling. Class 5 Language Arts is a skills practice class that is arts-infused and scaffolded by enriching stories to complement the Main Lesson. Students will review grammar concepts, be guided through report writing, letter writing, and creative writing, practice spelling and vocabulary, figurative language, poetry, and drama.
It is important to awaken the Fifth Grader’s sense of wonder through the overarching topics and themes through which our study of language arts streams. The Fifth Grader is beginning to awaken to humanity and to themselves as they begin their study of humanity through history.
In the fifth grade, it is important to review and expand on what we did in the fourth grade, and, from that point on, it is important to take into account the difference between active and passive verb forms. We also begin asking children of this particular age not only to reproduce freely what they have seen and heard, but also to quote what they have heard and read and to use quotation marks appropriately. We try to give the children a great deal of spoken practice in distinguishing between conveying their own opinions and conveying those of others. Through their writing assignments, we also try to arouse a keen distinction between what they themselves have thought, seen and so forth, and what they communicate about what others have said. In this context, we again try to perfect their use of punctuation. Letter writing is also developed further."
Rudolf Steiner, Discussions with Teachers , First Lecture on the Curriculum
In the Class 5 language arts we will be raising self-awareness through grammar. Moving from conclusion to judgment to concept, we use the way children naturally obtain knowledge to introduce grammar.
The key grammar concepts that will be covered are:
· Parts of speech
· direct and indirect speech
· active voice and passive voice
· verbs in complex tenses
· helping verbs and auxiliary verbs
· tenses in time
· perfect tenses
· progressive tenses
· adverbs
· conjunctions
· interjections
· pronouns
· prepositions
· nouns
· adjectives
· punctuation
The themes that we will work with to draw out our inspiration are:
Greek mythology
Ancient civilizations
Verses and stories from ancient India, Persia, Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Students in Class 5 language arts will practice the following reading and writing skills:
Writing with clear descriptions on main lesson subjects
Writing topic sentences and organizing thoughts
Writing reports that contain facts
Writing business letters with clarity
Heightening powers of observation
Gathering specific information and writing a report on it
Dictations and spelling lists.
Lotus & Ivy Language Arts classes will consist of a 20-minute homework exercise each week. The goal is to provide opportunities for the children to experience what they are learning regularly. There will be a weekly assignment given the week before - to prepare for the Friday lesson. It is essential that the students arrive prepared for the lesson, having done the preparation work before.