Upper Elementary Division

Moving from the Early to Upper Elementary Division (Second through Sixth Grade) is a celebrated rite of passage as your child relocates upstairs.

Over the next five years, your child will grow in confidence and competence as he is encouraged, challenged, and inspired. Your child will look forward to outdoor education trips, mentoring younger students, and more public speaking and performance opportunities.

Your child will experience increased academic challenge while continuing to enjoy a nurturing and empowering environment in which she can freely express ideas and opinions and learn about impact and influence. Your child will begin to lead some of his parent-teacher conferences and gain confidence in identifying areas of academic strength as well as goal setting for future progress. As your child matures, she will demonstrate the trademark qualities that Trinity students are known for: curiosity, creativity, selfadvocacy, compassion, and confidence.

Read on to discover more about the experiences that await Upper Elementary Division students.

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Table of Contents

Subject Areas

Early Elementary Division

Upper Elementary Division

Second Grade

Third Grade

Fourth Grade

Fifth Grade

Sixth Grade

Second Grade

An exciting year awaits Second Grade students as they move from the Early Elementary to the Upper Elementary Division. To aid in the transition, these students receive plenty of care and attention from their base classroom and specials teachers. With a focus on study skills and the responsibility of keeping an organized binder, Second Graders gain independence and confidence in themselves.

Working in cooperative base groups and conducting community service projects are ways in which these students develop greater interdependence and gain an understanding of citizenship. The highlight of the Second-Grade academic experience is studying Indigenous People of North America and participating in Trade Day. Performing in all-school productions for the first time is just one of the rites of passage our Second Graders experience.

Second Grade Learning Essentials

Language Arts

• Writes opinion pieces that support, connect, and conclude.

• Creates narratives that include a sequence of events, details, thoughts, feelings, and a sense of closure.

• Writes informational texts that introduce, use facts, and have a conclusion.

• Recounts stories, key details, and how characters respond.

• Uses information from illustrations and print to gain understanding.

• Compares and contrasts cultural stories and authors.

• Identifies the main topic of a text and the author’s purpose.

• Knows and applies phonics and decoding strategies.

• Reads fluently and accurately to support comprehension.

• Participates in shared writing and research projects.

• Has collaborative conversations and expresses feelings clearly.

• Uses appropriate grammar when speaking, writing, and spelling.

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Subject Areas

Early Elementary Division

Upper Elementary Division

Math

• Understands place value concepts.

• Fluently adds and subtracts within 100.

• Begins to work with equal groups to gain foundation for multiplication.

• Recognizes the need for standard units of measurement.

• Describes and analyzes shapes by examining their sides, angles, and attributes.

• Makes sense of one- and twostep word problems.

Science

• Makes observations, predictions, and conclusions.

• Demonstrates changes in speed and direction using pushes and pulls.

• Explores how the sun, moon, and stars change position in the sky.

• Investigates the life cycles of plants and animals.

Social Studies

• Explores how history, geography, economics, and government play a part in our culture.

• Understands the importance of perspectives when learning about all facets of our history: the who, what, when, where, why, and how.

• Compares and contrasts various cultures from the past and present including Indigenous People of North America.

• Understands the reasons for exploration of the past and present.

Third Grade

Third Grade is the magical year when children realize the power of their own writing, thinking, and learning. They improve in time management and organization skills, which allow them to move toward becoming independent learners. A greater emphasis is placed upon following multi-step directions and thinking critically, which allow students to move from concrete to abstract thinking.

Students begin to utilize life experiences, develop a deeper understanding of concepts and the world around them, and connect these experiences to the experiences of others. Reading between the lines, Third Graders have increased comprehension and start to recognize the subtleties of humor. The Living Museum and engaging field trips are just a few of the highlights of the Third-Grade year.

Third Grade Learning Essentials

Language Arts

• Writes opinion pieces with an introduction, organizational structure with reasons to support opinion, linking words and phrases, and a concluding statement.

• Creates informative text with a topic, illustrations, facts, linking words, and a concluding statement.

• Writes narratives with details, clear events, dialogue, characters, and closure.

• Conducts short research projects about a topic.

• Asks and answers questions referring explicitly to the text.

• Describes characters and recounts stories.

• Compares and contrasts the themes, settings, and plots of stories written by the same author about the same or similar characters.

• Uses text features to locate information on a topic.

• Identifies meanings of prefixes and suffixes and decodes multisyllable words to understand vocabulary.

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Subject Areas

Early Elementary Division

Upper Elementary Division

Math

• Understands the properties of multiplication and the relationship between multiplication and division.

• Understands the concept of area as it relates to multiplication.

• Adds and subtracts fluently within 1,000.

• Understands, compares, and uses fractions; develops an understanding of fractions as numbers.

Science

• Makes observations, predictions, and conclusions.

• Explains how animals and their habitats have changed over time.

• Demonstrates processes that shape the Earth’s surface, such as weathering and erosion.

• Identifies sources of energy and that it is transferred in different ways.

Social Studies

• Identifies, labels, and locates various features on a map that includes continents, topographical features, and lines of latitude and longitude.

• Explains the reasons for exploration of the past, present, and future.

• Describes the events leading up to Colonial America and explore the life of a person living during colonial times through various perspectives.

Fourth Grade

Reaching double digits in age, Trinity Fourth Graders are able to recognize, establish, and act on the many connections between curricular subject areas. Students solidify basic skills and are challenged to explore personal passions while taking risks both in and outside of the classroom. Fourth Grade students earn letter grades in math and language arts and learn essential study skills for organization, time management, and test-taking.

Through cooperative learning activities, students begin to value their personal contributions to the whole group and recognize the need for others in working towards a common goal. With greater awareness of self and others, Fourth Graders begin to establish their identity as individuals. At this critical time, they receive support in managing diverse personalities and changing friendships through class meetings and cooperative learning opportunities. The Westward Expansion experience is a hallmark of Fourth Grade.

Fourth Grade Learning Essentials

Language Arts

• Writes opinion, information, and narrative pieces with organizational structure, facts and details, linking phrases, and a concluding statement.

• Conducts short research projects and presents information with confidence.

• Draws inferences, determines theme and main idea, summarizes text, and describes the elements of a story.

• Compares and contrasts; interprets informational text.

• Develops and applies various comprehension skills to respond to literature.

• Uses knowledge of morphology to read and understand text; reads fluently and with expression.

• Contributes to group conversation and listens actively.

• Uses correct grammar when speaking, writing, and spelling.

• Demonstrates understanding of figurative language and uses common Greek and Latin roots and affixes to make meaning of words.

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Subject Areas

Early Elementary Division

Upper Elementary Division

Math

• Fluently adds and subtracts whole numbers up to 1,000,000.

• Uses place value understanding and properties of operations to perform multi-digit multiplication and division.

• Develops an understanding of equivalent fractions and their relationship to decimals.

• Describes, analyzes, compares, and classifies two-dimensional shapes and other elements of geometry.

• Explores unit conversions of measurement.

• Uses real-world connections to solve and create word problems.

Science

• Makes observations, predictions, and conclusions.

• Explores the objects and systems in space and their effect on the Earth.

• Identifies the forces of flight and how they affect things that fly.

• Understands weather systems and the instruments used to measure them.

Social Studies

• Explores the events leading up to the American Revolution and how it impacted our history through multiple perspectives and conflict.

• Learns about the three branches of government and how people can affect change through civic duty and responsibility.

• Explain the reason and impact of Westward Expansion through empathy, perspective, and conflict.

Fifth Grade

Fifth Grade, a year of growing leadership and accountability, is a year of many firsts. For the first time, students venture away from their base classrooms to learn from specialists in math and science and earn letter grades in all core subjects. Fifth Graders also enjoy their first outdoor education trips and partake in their first schoolwide theatrical performance, The Nutcracker.

Students survey history through the concepts of conflict, multiple perspective, culture, change and continuity, interdependence, and community with opportunities to delve deeper into topics of interest. As a culmination of the year, the students synthesize information centered on major events of the 20th Century and investigate the impact these events have had on one of the biggest sporting events in history – the Olympics. Fifth Graders are members of the “Leadership Class in training” and have the opportunity to serve on Trinity’s Student Council and take on a variety of responsibilities related to the school community.

Fifth Grade Learning Essentials

Language Arts

• Uses text evidence when drawing inferences, comparing characters and setting, and determining the theme when reading and responding to reading through writing.

• Compares and contrasts structure and events within two or more texts.

• Gathers information from print and digital sources, and speaks and writes confidently on the topic.

• Understands figurative language in reading and uses it in writing.

• Compares and contrasts within two or more texts.

• Reads accurately and fluently and displays literal and inferential comprehension.

• Produces clear and coherent persuasive, narrative, and expository pieces.

• Conducts and presents research projects and engages in collaborative discussions.

• Demonstrates command of the English language and uses correct grammar, spelling, and usage when writing and speaking.

Table

Subject Areas

Early Elementary Division

Upper Elementary Division

Math

• Builds foundation for algebraic reasoning through the analysis of patterns and relationships.

• Performs operations fluently with multi-digit whole numbers and decimals.

• Adds, subtracts, multiplies, and divides fractions.

• Solves problems involving perimeter, circumference, area, and volume of basic geometric figures.

Science

• Investigates and observes the chemistry, organisms, ecosystems, and environmental impact on the freshwater systems of the earth.

• Engages in research and experiments with magnets and electricity.

• Learns about atoms and elements and their structure.

• Explores cell structure and function and how genetics and heredity determine our physical and behavioral traits.

Social Studies

• Explores the history of the United States from the Civil War through present day.

• Understands the themes of culture, conflict, perspective, identity, and change through a diverse historical lens.

• Uses effective reading, writing, and research skills to engage in the topics of history, geography, and civics.