California Computer Science: 5th Grade
- Level Elementary School
- Number of Lessons 32
- Grade 5th
This course belongs to the CodeHS Computer Science Standards for California Public Schools pathway. This course is designed to provide computer science instruction for California 5th grade students, and it is aligned to the Computer Science Standards for California Public Schools.
See the full syllabus for all topics and activities, or explore the course to try it out.
UNITS - 8 (32 lessons)
Students review foundational CS vocabulary, navigate the coordinate plane, and use drawing tools to prepare for the year's programming units.
Students use events to build informational and storytelling programs, debug programs, research CS innovators, and compare and refine algorithms for efficiency.
Students use loops and the pen tool to create turtle graphics and enhance games with looping effects based on peer feedback.
Students use conditionals, pseudocode planning, and operators to build maze and coin-flip programs.
Students use variables, comparison operators, and lists to control dance speed and pitch, game mechanics, and a shopping simulator.
Students use clones to build a game and create functions with inputs to share personal information.
Students combine loops, conditionals, and variables to design a capstone game and use design thinking to create an app that solves a user's need.
Students explore digital literacy topics including CS history (Grace Hopper), cyberbullying reporting, cybersecurity laws, cryptography, file management, computing systems, networking protocols, research attribution, and machine learning.
Explore a sample lesson from this course!
CodeHop, a block-based platform where programs are written, saved, and debugged in a hands-on interface.
36 contact hours in roughly 45-minute lessons, matching one lesson per week across a school year.
Some units close with a brief two-question quiz, offered digitally, as a QuizBuzz activity, or on paper.
Through a research project on CS innovators like Grace Hopper and a look at mobile app careers, where students analyze and extend an existing game's code.
Concepts spiral forward from 4th grade — clones and functions return with more advanced applications, and new topics like network protocols, cryptography, and machine learning classification are layered on top.
