Grade 6

List of 10 items.

• Design

  This course introduces students to the Design Cycle, which is, at its core, a model for empathetic problem solving. The cycle has four stages: analysis, ideation, creation, and evaluation; students find that they often need to rethink their progress and revisit stages of the cycle. This rethinking and revisiting can occur through a variety of individual and collaborative projects like the Car Challenge, the Cardboard Arcade and the interdisciplinary Rube Goldberg Machine. Over the course of the year, students develop familiarity with basic construction, the iterative process and coding. Students track their progress and provide reflection, an integral component of the process, in individualized design blogs.

• Individuals & Societies

  This course is designed to enrich a student’s foundation of conceptual historical knowledge of the world. The overall purpose is to encourage students to create a meaningful connection between what they already know and what they are attempting to learn. The relationship between geography and history are an underlying theme throughout. Beginning with the study of world history in ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, and ending the year with an examination of medieval times. Students focus on reading comprehension, inquiry, note taking, and writing skills.

• Language & Literature

  Students focus on interpreting literature, including Greek myths, the play The Miracle Worker, the novel The Giver, and selected excerpts from the works of authors known for their descriptive prowess, including John Steinbeck and Roald Dahl. Additionally, students learn the mechanics of writing, with a focus on solid paragraph construction, mastering commonly confused words, understanding apostrophe usage, and establishing strong proofreading skills. Listening, speaking, note-taking, organizational skills and expanding students’ written and spoken vocabulary are also integral to this course. Beyond classroom discussion and writing prompts, students engage in novel projects that allow them to choose from selections of literature based on common themes.

• Mathematics

  Math 6 is taught through the MYP lens, working to promote inquiry and application, and helping students become better communicators and problem solvers. The course reviews number operations involving whole numbers, fractions and mixed numbers, and decimals. Students’ also become more sophisticated in their study of geometry (area, perimeter, surface area, and volume), number theory (factors and multiples), data analysis (measures of center and variation), and begin to see concrete problems as abstract algebraic ideas (expressions, equations and inequalities). The main text for this course is Big Ideas Math: Advanced 1.

• Physical & Health Education

  Throughout the year, Middle School students engage in three major components of Physical & Health Education (PHE): Health & Wellness, Social-Emotional Development, and what it means to be a student athlete. As part of the Health & Wellness component, students focus on learning about muscular strength and endurance, cardiovascular endurance, flexibility, and body composition, and they participate in exercises and activities that promote the development of agility, balance, coordination, speed, power, and reaction time. Students also develop a deeper understanding of nutrition, growth, and development. The social-emotional aspect of PHE will allow students to grow and reflect through activities focused in five core competency areas, including self-awareness, self-regulation, social-awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making. Finally, a focus for our students throughout the year is on what it means to be a student athlete. We emphasize the “being the best you” attitude, and highlight practicing empathy and inclusiveness, individual and team skills, reflection on words and actions, and finding joy in what they are learning with a positive attitude.

• Science

  Over the course of the year, students will engage in units of study in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Earth Science. These units are inquiry-based and emphasize the application of knowledge to novel situations, where students conduct independent research and evaluate how scientists solve real world problems. Hands-on and virtual laboratory experiences actively engage students in scientific inquiry in the following topics: Newton’s Laws of Motion, Plate Tectonics, States of Matter and the Periodic Table, and Marine Ecology. The year culminates in the journey to California, where students carry out planned field experiments investigating the biodiversity of the tidal pools of Monterey Bay and the design and construction of Rube Goldberg Machines as a culminating, interdisciplinary experience.

• Spanish

  Over the year, students build a foundational awareness of the four skills in language learning: speaking, reading, writing, and listening. Our strong commitment to developing verbal skills ensures that students are engaged in a 90% target language environment. Topics include: preliminary vocabulary related to greetings, introductions, common expressions of courtesy, numbers, days, weeks, dates, times, seasons, and weather, describing oneself and others, house and family, and in-school and after-school activities. This class also engages our students in a variety of cultural activities that are aligned with the topics of study, to prompt a deeper understanding of the language, people, and customs in a variety of Spanish speaking countries. By the end of the year, students will have completed the first one-third of the high school Spanish 1 textbook, ¡Así se dice!

• Strings

  The Middle School Strings Classes gives students the opportunity to learn or increase their skills on violin, viola, cello, or bass. Units include: “Instrumental Technique”, “Music Performance in Orchestras” and “Improvisation”. The curriculum is adjusted to match the playing abilities of the class and any level may participate. Along with learning music reading, ensemble skills and musical context, students perform at a variety of all school events throughout the year.

• Theatre

  The art of theater demands that artists engage in an ongoing process of construction and deconstruction. This class explores the art of theater and places it in the context of our changing world.  

  The course looks at the history of theater and focuses on how theater developed, the purpose it served in the development of human society, and the forces that changed theater throughout history. Students deconstruct characters created by a playwright and learn to create a believable character onstage. While our main focus is on acting - students have the opportunity to learn the basics of theater design through scenery, lights, and costumes.

• Visual Art

  The history of art is long and sometimes complicated; stories told, stories lost, and stories rediscovered. Students in Visual Arts learn about how history was nearly lost but how its rediscovery changed the world's "perspective." Cultures all over the world have been creating using clay for tens of thousands of years. The class explores some of those cultures and uses their ancient knowledge to create something contemporary. Visual art is not an exclusively individual activity, collaboration through the creative process takes a unique set of skills but the outcome is always amazing. Finally, there is rhythm in everything we do, including visual arts, and so we turn musical composition into a stunning visual artwork.