5th Grade Massachusetts Digital Literacy and Computer Science
- Level Elementary School
- Number of Lessons 34
- Grade 5th
This course is designed to provide digital literacy and computer science instruction for Massachusetts 5th grade students.
UNITS - 11 (34 lessons)
Students review CodeHop basics, the coordinate plane, drawing tools, and computational thinking for those who need extra practice before starting 5th grade content.
Students use events in a program and continue building their debugging skills through a pizza-making project.
Students use loops to create turtle graphics and practice planning and decomposing the steps of a quest program.
Students create and use variables, lists, and comparison operators through a shopping simulator, a game, and a dance project.
Students use clones, classes, and objects to build interactive game projects.
Students apply a year of programming skills across two culminating projects, designing an app and collaborating on a game.
Students explore networks, protocols, and computing systems, and use productivity software to persuade an audience.
Students learn digital etiquette, how to recognize and report cyberbullying, how to make responsible choices online, and basics of cryptography and cybersecurity policy.
Students learn to search for and attribute information online and analyze data to draw conclusions and make predictions.
Students explore how technology and culture influence each other, how inclusion has shaped computing, and careers building mobile apps.
Students compare human and machine performance, train an AI model, and learn about the ethical use of generative AI.
Explore a sample lesson from this course!
This course advances students' programming skills through events, loops, variables, lists, clones, classes, and objects, culminating in projects where students design an app and collaborate on a game. Students also explore computing systems and networks, practice digital safety and cybersecurity topics, analyze data and online sources, examine computing's cultural impact and inclusion in tech careers, and learn to train AI models and use generative AI responsibly.
The course is aligned to the Massachusetts Digital Literacy and Computer Science (DLCS) standards for grades 3-5, covering strands including Computational Thinking (CT), Computing Systems (CS), Digital Tools and Collaboration (DTC), and Community, Global, and Ethical Impacts (CAS). Lessons that meet specific standards are labeled accordingly in the syllabus.
No, there are no prerequisites. The course is designed to support all learners in 5th grade, regardless of prior computer science experience, and includes an optional review unit for students who need extra practice with CodeHop basics.
The course includes 36 lessons, each approximately 45 minutes long, for a total of 36 hours. It provides a full year of instruction when taught once per week, with some lessons required to meet state computer science standards.
Students use CodeHop, a teacher-led, block-based programming environment with a consistent lesson structure (Introduction, Guided Practice, Independent Practice, Extension, and Reflection). Students write and run programs saved in their own accounts, and also work with productivity software and AI tools like Teachable Machine.
