Spanish

About this course

The language taught here is Spanish, and fifth grade is a noticeable step up in how the material is presented. Eight units cover greetings and time, family and home, school and daily routines, food and meals, community and places, nature and creation, the verb system, and describing people and things. Along the way your student meets grammar that earlier grades did not touch: the difference between formal usted and informal tu, reflexive verbs and the pronouns me and te for talking about a morning routine, possessive pronouns, the backwards verb gustar and why it becomes gustan when more than one thing is liked, comparisons with mas que, menos que, and tan como, the irregular comparatives mejor, peor, mayor, and menor, and superlatives. The verb unit works through all three regular conjugations plus ser, estar, tener, and ir, then question words and negation.

The lessons themselves are the most useful part. Each one opens with a heading, then a vocabulary table with three columns of Spanish, English, and a plain-English pronunciation guide such as lah-VAR-seh for lavarse. After that come key phrases, a grammar note explaining the rule in ordinary language, example sentences, and often a short Common Mistakes section warning against errors like writing mas mejor. Every lesson ends with a written practice task, usually five or six original sentences about your student's own family, routine, or food preferences, and then a ten-question quiz that grades itself. A verse or a short reflection ties the day to Scripture. Spanish is written correctly here, with accents and inverted question marks.

There are 80 lessons in 8 units of 10, planned at about 20 minutes each. Each unit ends with two closing lessons, a review and a practice session, so a quarter of the course is consolidation rather than new material. Pencil and paper are the only supplies, and the standing homework is vocabulary flashcards you and your family will need to make. There is no audio in this course. The pronunciation column in each table is the entire pronunciation instruction your student gets, and several practice tasks ask for sentences to be said aloud, so reading them together is worth the time. It assumes the fourth-grade vocabulary and some familiarity with ser, estar, and tener, and unit 1 begins with a review of greetings, days, months, time, and numbers to one hundred before moving on.

What the course covers

• Greetings, introductions, and formal usted versus informal tu
• Days, months, telling time, and numbers to 100
• Family, the house, rooms, furniture, and possessive pronouns
• School subjects, supplies, daily schedules, and after-school activities
• Reflexive verbs and describing a morning routine
• Meals, ordering at a restaurant, and the verb gustar
• Places in town, directions, transportation, church, and asking for help
• Animals, nature, weather, and the seasons
• Regular -ar, -er, and -ir verbs plus ser, estar, tener, and ir
• Physical and personality descriptions, comparisons, and superlatives

What your student will be able to do

• Conjugate all three regular verb families and the four core irregular verbs
• Use reflexive verbs to describe a daily routine in Spanish
• Say what you like and dislike correctly with gusta and gustan
• Compare two people or things using mas que, menos que, and tan como
• Ask for and give directions to places around town
• Describe a person's appearance and character with adjectives that agree

Scope and sequence

All 8 units of Spanish for Grade 5, in the order they are taught.

Every lesson, by title

All 80 lesson titles are listed here — nothing is withheld until you download. Open a unit to read its contents.

One whole lesson, exactly as it comes

This is a real lesson taken from the middle of the course — the teaching text, the practice, the homework, and the first three quiz questions with their answers. It is not a marketing excerpt.

What you will need

Drawn from the materials named across all 80 lessons of this course. Most families already own most of it.