6th Grade Curriculum

Mr. Sancton's Page     Mrs. Tucker's Page

This interdisciplinary course is taught in a block schedule format with Social Studies 6. Parallel units include : Mythology/ Ancient History, The Midwife's Apprentice/ Medieval Times, Folk Tales/ Cultures of the Eastern Hemisphere, Research/ History and Geography of the Eastern Hemisphere, and Hatchet/ Five Themes of Geography. In addition, students will explore the theme "Growing and Changing" through works such as The Phantom Tollbooth, Tuck Everlasting, and Maniac Magee. Students will use the writing process to develop narratives, poems, interviews, and essays. They will also study spelling, vocabulary, grammar, and usage throughout the year.

Students survey the geography, history, and cultures of selected regions of the Eastern Hemisphere. This interdisciplinary course is taught in block schedule format along with English 6. (See English 6 course description for examples of interdisciplinary units.) Current events, research and map skills, and the five themes of geography are also important elements of the curriculum.

This class is designed to promote reading for pleasure. Students meet twice weekly to read and discuss the books of their choice from their classroom, school, public or personal libraries. They learn to select appropriate reading material and to read a wide range of genres. An incentive program encourages students to increase the variety and volume of their reading.

The course content of 6^th grade math focuses on continuing the mastering of many skills started in earlier grades and the introduction of many new concepts and skills. Skills, concepts, topics covered in 6^th grade math include: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division with whole numbers, fractions, and decimals; estimating answers and mental solutions to problems; numeration to the hundred-thousandths place; rounding off; prime and composite numbers; geometry of quadrilaterals, triangles, circles and rectangular prisms with respect to perimeter, circumference, area and volume; metric and customary units of measurement; ratios and percents; probability; adding and subtracting of integers, and the graphing of ordered pairs of numbers. Tests at the end of each chapter are cumulative, covering all work from the beginning of the sixth grade.

Sixth grade math classes are heterogeneously grouped and do exactly the same work. However, based on 6^th grade class grades, national standardized test results, and teacher recommendations, students will be placed in a 7^th grade on level math class or in a 7^th grade advanced class.

The topics covered in 6^th grade science complement the 7^th and 8^th grade science programs. Sixth grade science focuses on: plate tectonics, continental drift, the earth’s interior structure, earthquakes, volcanoes, minerals, igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks; the fossils record, geologic time, the states of matter; physical and chemical changes; properties of matter; atomic structure; elements, compounds, and mixtures; the periodic table; bonding; metals and nonmetals; solutions; acids, bases, and salts; and radioactivity.

Activities consist of laboratory experiments and classroom discussion. In the laboratory students learn to work cooperatively, perform experiments, use laboratory equipment properly and safely, and reason scientifically. Students are required to submit a project each quarter.

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Pocantico Hills School

This page was updated 09/01/04