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Unit 3

Unit 3 is typically an eight-week unit taught from December to February.

Unit Overview

Mathematics is a tool used to solve problems in everyday life. In this unit, students apply their developing knowledge of patterns and relationships, as well as their understanding of mathematical language, to solve a variety of everyday problems. Students explore concepts of number and operations as they read, write, and represent simple fractions, decimals, and percents. Students extend their understanding of operations with whole numbers to operations with fractions, decimals, and percents.
Three important understandings underlie fraction concepts. First, the whole matters. In the primary grades, students investigated whether the whole being considered is a single unit or a set. The second understanding is that the greater the denominator in a fraction, the smaller the fractional part. In Grade 4, students explored fractions as parts of a whole and recognized that the whole must be known to compare fractions. They investigated different ways to represent fractions and used models and pictures to understand how fractional parts are combined and separated. Finally, fractions are connected to multiplication and division. In Grade 5, students investigate the relationships among common and decimal fractions and percents and how they can be used to represent the same quantity. Decimals can be expressed as fractions whose denominators are powers of 10. Percents can be expressed as fractions whose denominator is 100. Students also determine when it is appropriate to use each representation. Understanding the relationship among fractions, decimals, and percents extends students' understanding of our number system and provides the foundation for understanding ratios, proportions, and rates.

Parent Newsletters

Parent Newsletters for Grade 5
Informative documents with fun activities and tips to help your child learn mathematics.

Content Map

Content map for Grade 5 Unit 3 (PDF)

Web Resources

Find learning activities and games sorted by content strand on our resource page.  

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