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Our fifth grade social studies book United States History Early Years, is organized into units containing several chapters in each unit. Our students will study the thirteen chapters in this book that contain the history of the United States beginning with the earliest times and continuing until the end of the Reconstruction period after the Civil War in 1877. The focus of the course content has changed so that the sixth grade history course will continue the study of United States history from Reconstruction to modern times. The content of both the fifth and sixth grade social studies courses is very important as many questions on the graduation examination concern United States history.

Each student will be asked to develop a social studies notebook with each of the vocabulary words from each lesson written and defined. Students will be given some time at the end of most periods when words are assigned to complete their definitions, but those not finishing their work will need to complete it for homework.

The vocabulary word definitions should be labeled on the notebook page with the textbook page number where the words are listed. Each word should be numbered with no lines skipped in between words so as to conserve paper. The back of the notebook page may be used to write definitions and it is necessary to skip only one line between groups of vocabulary words from different lessons.

Each chapter has three, four, or five lessons. Students are provided with vocabulary words pertaining to each lesson on the first page of that lesson. The words are always located on the left edge of the first page of the lesson in an area that is highlighted in yellow. The new vocabulary words are also highlighted in yellow in the sentences where they are used in the textbook. Students must know how to pronounce the words as well as understand the meaning of each word in order to understand the lesson. The vocabulary words are also used on the vocabulary and study guide workbook pages that each student does in class in order to prepare for chapter tests.

The definitions written in the social studies notebook become a study guide that students can use to study for their tests.   Many of the test questions that students are required to answer contain the same vocabulary words that the students will have written into their notebooks.  In addition to the student notebooks, students will complete workbook pages that become a study guide. The publisher of our textbooks supplies the workbooks.

It is my belief that the social studies notebook will help students to prepare for chapter tests and promote retention of the material that we study in social studies this year.  It is particularly important that students be able to remember what they learn in the fifth grade because the graduation exit exam will include much of this information as well as information from the second half of the course, which will be taught in their sixth grade social studies class.