In the primary grades, students are introduced to two-dimensional shapes such as squares, rectangles, circles and triangles. In fifth grade, they are introduced to the terms for three-dimensional shapes such as cones, spheres, cubes and prisms, as well as other shapes, such as polygons, parallelograms and quadrilaterals. Students use their understanding of characteristics of specific shapes to categorize them into groups.
As students in fifth grade begin to group shapes based on characteristics, they become familiar with terms such as parallel and perpendicular lines. They also learn to differentiate between a line, line segments and rays. Another term to go along with this group would be a vertice, the point where two rays come together. This will help students to name angles.
Part of fifth grade geometry requires students to categorize triangles and measure the angles with a protractor. To help with this process, students are introduced to the terms acute, obtuse and right angles. Understanding these terms helps students correctly identify an angle based on its measure in degrees. These terms will also help students know if they are drawing and measuring angles correctly.
As students get more comfortable with shapes, they learn to measure their dimensions. To do this, they use terms such as area, perimeter, diameter, surface area, volume and degrees. To complete these measurements students have to have an understanding of the metric system, as well as U.S. units of measurement.