Teachers:
		Stephanie Regina Language Arts & Social Studies				Kathleen Geist Science
		John Minturn Math				Ruth Taylor Instructional Support

Language Arts
The sixth-grade language arts class will read a variety of texts, including novels, historical fiction, short stories, plays, articles, etc., and engage in group discussions about themes and ideas within the texts. The Language Arts curriculum is integrated with social studies and science, and much of the reading in class will support the content in these areas. Some grade-level standards will be addressed in isolation, such as independent grammar practice, reading strategy instruction, spelling, and writing skills, while other group activities and assignments will concentrate on the class as a whole. In writing, we will focus on the process of pre-writing, drafting, revising, and editing, as well as using the color-coded “stop-light” approach to writing organization, which is used across the middle school, to construct clearly organized essays by the year’s end. Poetry writing and discussion will also take place throughout the year.

Fall Cleanup at the Butterfly House Green Woods students clean-up the Schuylkill Center's Butterfly House. More...

Texts and workbooks to be used:
Grades 5-6 Houghton Mifflin Anthology
Grades 5-8 Language Exercise (Steck Vaughn)

Special Grade Level Activities:
Grade 6-Buddy Reading with younger students

Social Studies
The focus of sixth-grade social studies is the history of trade and transportation. After an introduction to the major geographic features of the world, we will focus on early humans, Ancient Mesopotamia, and Ancient Egypt to determine how the environment affected early economic systems and how transportation affected the growth of civilizations and trade. An integrated project will help students see the importance of simple machines. We will then study ancient trade routes like the Silk Road in China, the spice trade in India, and the Roman Empire to determine how transportation affected trade in the ancient world and how the location of resources affected ancient world economies. 

Science
For our 6th Grade the focus is on Physical Science. We begin the year with explorations into the laws of force and motion. Next we'll explore simple machines and how they've been used from ancient to modern times. By the 2nd Semester the 6th grade will be learning about mass, matter and the elements. The final quarter of the year we will experiment with magnetism, electricity, light and energy.

Language Arts
Sixth-grade language arts will start off with a review of writing mechanics and the components of a short story. From there we will read historical novels and short historical nonfiction about the ancient worlds of Egypt and Mesopotamia in conjunction with the study of ancient people in social studies. Among these will be a book exploring the mysteries surrounding King Tut, as well as the adventures of Time Cat, a magical time-traveling cat that takes his young owner on a journey through world history! In writing, the students will practice informational and descriptive writing and using different points of view, which will be reinforced by integrated projects on simple machines and the Seven Wonders of the World in social studies. We will also work on creative grammar projects for which the students will have to invent objects that can teach children particular rules of grammar.

Math
Students will begin the year with a unit on the collection, display, and interpretation of data. More specifically, they will learn about line plots, bar graphs, mean and median, and other types of persuasive data and graphs. In Unit 2 of Everyday Math, students will focus on operation with whole numbers and decimals, reviewing addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division with decimals. Students will also practice exponential notation and scientific notation with and without a calculator.

Social Studies
We will begin the year in sixth-grade social studies by looking at the geography of the world and examining the areas in which the earliest civilizations lived, including ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. We will look particularly at how trade contributed to the development of these civilizations, and how advancements in transportation and simple machines allowed trade, and therefore civilizations, to flourish. An integrated project will allow students to construct their own simple machines. From there, we will move into an exploration of the seven Wonders of the World, and an integrated project will give students the opportunity to consider how the seven wonders may have been constructed by choosing one of which they may construct models of their own. 

Physical Science
6th Grade begins the year by exploring Newton’s basic Laws of Force & Motion.  There will be a lot of pushing, pulling, and objects in motion!  This leads to investigations of the 6 simple machines, and how they have been used throughout history.  Next we investigate how the properties of fluids (air and water) create buoyancy and lift – and how concrete and steel can float and fly.  By wintertime we’ll be investigating the properties of matter and the Periodic Table of the Elements.