🪐Grade 5 Science: Earth & Space

Children can recite the order of the planets and still believe the seasons happen because Earth gets closer to the sun. This course spends a full week dismantling that misconception with a torch, a tilted globe and a set of measurements, because naming things is not the same as understanding them.

The scale-model activity is the other highlight: children lay out the solar system along a street or corridor using a printed distance chart, and are genuinely surprised by how much empty space there is.

What your child will be able to do

By the end of this course, a learner working at the expected pace will be able to:

• Explain day, night and the seasons using Earth's rotation and tilt
• Describe the solar system and the relative scale of its bodies
• Distinguish gravity, air resistance, friction and upthrust
• Explain the water cycle including evaporation and condensation
• Describe reversible and irreversible changes with examples

How the course is structured

Grade 5 Science: Earth & Space is organised into 4 units covering 76 lessons in total, designed to run across 32 weeks at roughly 2.5 hours a week. The unit outline below shows 16 representative lessons.

Earth in space

• Rotation, day and night
• Orbit, tilt and the seasons
• Phases of the moon
• Modelling the solar system to scale

Forces

• Gravity and weight vs mass
• Air resistance: the parachute test
• Water resistance and streamlining
• Levers, pulleys and gears

States of matter

• Solids, liquids, gases and particles
• Melting, freezing, boiling
• Evaporation rate investigation
• The water cycle

Properties and changes

• Dissolving and solubility
• Separating mixtures: filtering and sieving
• Reversible and irreversible changes
• Materials for a purpose

How it is taught

Common misconceptions are named explicitly in each unit and then tested against evidence. Children are asked what they already think before being told what is correct, which makes the correction stick.

What is included

• 76 lessons with 18 investigations
• Scale-model solar system printable
• Investigation write-up frames
• 20 quizzes plus a research project brief

Who this course suits

This course sits in the Grade 5 track and follows a oxford-aligned sequence. It suits families who want a complete, sequenced science year rather than a set of loose practice activities, and it assumes no teaching experience — every lesson includes a short method note for the adult. If your child is comfortably ahead or behind the intermediate level described here, use the placement check in lesson one and start at the recommended point instead of lesson one.