Fifth grade art, music, movement and life skills

Fifth grade carries the heaviest money standards in elementary Texas: income tax, payroll tax, sales tax and property tax by name, gross versus net income, comparing check against credit card against debit card against electronic payment, keeping financial records, and balancing a budget when expenses outrun income. PE shifts to self-set goals and full-rules play. Music turns toward composing, which is the part almost everyone skips. Honest gap: most kid money kits do not touch taxes or payment methods, so the Texas standards for this year need the free federal material rather than a boxed program.

• K
• 1st
• 2nd
• 3rd
• 4th
• 5th

What to aim for this year

By the end of fifth grade, a child working at grade level can usually do these.

• Defines income tax, payroll tax, sales tax and property tax, which is the fifth grade Texas standard, by name
• Explains the difference between gross income and net income and can find both on a real pay stub
• Compares check, credit card, debit card and electronic payment and names an advantage and a drawback of each
• Keeps a simple record of money in and money out for a full month
• Balances a simple budget, and says what he would cut when expenses run past income
• Sets a personal fitness goal, tracks it over weeks, and adjusts it when it turns out to be wrong
• Plays a full-rules game well enough to teach the rules to a younger sibling
• Composes a short original piece and writes it down clearly enough for someone else to play it
• Performs a prepared piece for an audience outside the family
• Assembles a portfolio: several finished pieces in more than one medium, chosen by him, not by you
• Cooks a full meal, sews a repair or a simple project, and handles a basic household tool safely
• Reads a receipt and checks the sales tax line against the subtotal

Free, and legal to use

Every one of these costs nothing. The license tag says what you may actually do with it, which is not the same question as whether it is free to read.

• IMSLP (Petrucci Music Library) Free Public domain

  An enormous library of scanned sheet music, hundreds of thousands of scores. If your child plays anything, the piece he wants is probably here for free.

  License: Most scores are public domain, but copyright terms differ by country and IMSLP labels each file accordingly. Read the label before printing, especially for anything written in the twentieth century, and remember that a modern typeset edition of an old work can carry its own copyright.

• MuseScore Studio Free Free to use

  Free, open-source music notation software. A fifth grader can compose, hear it played back, and print real sheet music. Composing is the piece of music education almost everyone leaves out.

  License: Free and open-source software under the GNU GPL version 3. Free to download and use, and what your child writes in it belongs to him. The separate score-sharing website has its own terms and its own paid tier, so do not confuse the two.

• CFPB youth financial education building blocks Free Free to use

  Grade-banded activities covering budgeting, comparing payment methods, and understanding a paycheck. This is the closest free match to the Texas fifth grade financial literacy standards, gross versus net income included.

  License: Federal agency publication, free to download and print. Generally free of copyright as a U.S. government work. No explicit reuse grant is posted, so read the agency's site terms before republishing.

• OPEN Physical Education Curriculum, upper elementary modules Free See terms

  The upper elementary and middle school modules cover fitness knowledge, personal goal setting and full-rules game play, which is exactly the fifth grade shift.

  License: Free with a free account, and OPEN states downloaded resources can be edited and adapted for your own students. Their copyrighted work, so adapt rather than redistribute.

• Khan Academy Free CC BY-NC-SA

  Free courses including personal finance and art history, both of which a fifth grader can work through partly on his own. Useful for the weeks you cannot personally teach a sixth subject. The art history is Smarthistory's material, so it is the same source as the third grade pick rather than a second opinion.

  License: Free to use. Most Khan Academy content is licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0: share and adapt non-commercially with attribution, and attribution must link to khanacademy.org. Some content is licensed from third parties and is excluded, so check the footer of the specific page before adapting anything.

Paid programs, honestly

Nothing here is required. These are the programs families most often ask about, with the real drawback of each one named rather than skipped.

• A sewing machine and a beginner project Paid A basic mechanical machine commonly runs about $100 to $180 new. Serviced used machines often cost less and are frequently better built.

  Good at: A functional skill with immediate output, real math built into it, and a finished object at the end. A basic mechanical machine lasts decades and a fifth grader can be trusted with one under supervision.

  Drawback: Up-front cost, and a jammed bobbin ends the session in tears if nobody in the house sews. Cheap machines cause most of the frustration people blame on the child. Buy used from a dealer who services it before you buy new from a big-box store.

  Suits: A child who wants to make things that other people can use.

• Private music lessons Paid Commonly $25 to $40 per half hour in this area. Verify locally.

  Good at: By fifth grade a teacher can push technique, tone and interpretation rather than only note-finding, and playing for another person is a milestone that needs an actual audience.

  Drawback: The most expensive line in this subject, and useless without daily practice you enforce. Community music schools and college students teach for meaningfully less than studios do.

  Suits: A child who is already practicing without being told and has outgrown video lessons.

• A structured kids' money program (Financial Peace Junior and similar) Paid The Ramsey kids product line has been repackaged and I could not confirm a current price for the Junior kit. Check the publisher's store directly.

  Good at: A concrete envelope system with chore-to-pay mechanics that a ten-year-old grasps immediately. It turns an abstract standard into something happening on the kitchen counter.

  Drawback: Programs like this present one financial philosophy as the only sensible one, and the materials upsell hard toward the publisher's adult products. Ramsey's kids line is written from an explicitly Christian, debt-averse position. More practically, the Texas standards this year cover taxes, payment methods and net versus gross, which most kid money kits barely touch, so it cannot cover the grade by itself.

  Suits: Making saving and giving physical for a child who still thinks in cash.

• A club sport, swim team or organized training Paid Recreational $75 to $200 a season; club programs run several hundred to several thousand a year. Verify locally.

  Good at: Fifth grade is when self-set fitness goals become real, and a coach plus teammates turns tracking progress into a habit rather than a chore.

  Drawback: Cost and calendar both escalate here, and early single-sport specialization is worth resisting at this age. Two seasons of different sports beats one year-round.

  Suits: A child ready to train toward a goal he chose himself.

• A serious drawing or painting course book with real supplies Paid $60 to $120 sets up a serious basic kit. Art supply sales run frequently; verify current prices.

  Good at: A portfolio year deserves decent materials. Real watercolor paper, a few good brushes and artist-grade pencils change results more than any curriculum does, and the difference shows up within a week.

  Drawback: Good supplies cost real money and get used up. They also will not teach themselves, so a book or a course still has to sit beside them. Buy a small quantity of good materials instead of a large kit of poor ones.

  Suits: A child whose work has outgrown school-grade supplies and knows it.

Prices are approximate and change often. Check with the publisher before you buy. We describe and link to these programs; none of their material is hosted here.

What a week looks like

1. Monday: compose eight bars in MuseScore, then play them back and fix one thing
2. Tuesday: one CFPB building-blocks activity on gross versus net income, using a real pay stub
3. Wednesday: set and log a fitness goal, then run an OPEN PhysEd upper-elementary module
4. Thursday: portfolio work, one piece carried further rather than a new one started
5. Friday: read the week's receipts and check every sales tax line, then cook the meal you shopped for

Practice it here, free

These rooms on this site cover part of the year's work. No sign-up, and they work offline.

• money — Money math underneath budgeting, records and the tax lines on a receipt
• measure — Measuring for sewing, building and cooking projects
• units — Unit conversion, needed in every real recipe and pattern
• clock — Elapsed time and scheduling, which is practice planning
• graph — Graphing a fitness goal or a month of spending
• frac — Fractions, which is what a recipe and a rhythm are both made of
• music — Pitch and rhythm work to sit alongside composing
• patterns — Structure and repetition, which is musical form
• art — Composition practice for portfolio work

The rest of fifth grade