6th Grade Core: Language Art & Ancient Civilizations

Sixth grade Core covers three class periods of your child's day. In Core we learn Language Arts—reading, writing, word work, and grammar and syntax .Our Social Studies program focuses on ancient civilizations. Report cards will show two letter grades for Core: one for Language Arts and one for Social Studies.

Language Arts

Sixth grade core teachers have implemented the Columbia Teachers College Reading Writing Project writers’ workshop model.  Students concentrate on four writing units a year:  a personal narrative; an I-Search report based on individual choice of topic and extensive research; descriptive writing, which becomes the yearly writing assessment; and a persuasive essay.  During writers’ workshops students learn how to gather ideas and organize them, how to use the appropriate voice and word choice for the writing on which they’re concentrating, how to write fluent sentences, and how to revise their work, edit it, and proofread it so their writing observes the conventions of the English language.  During writers’ workshop, students write to become more proficient writers.

Sixth grade core teachers are receiving training in and are beginning to implement Columbia Teachers College Reading Writing Project reading workshops.  Each classroom has a leveled library available to students.  Teachers assess reading levels and develop reading plans with individual students, using common texts to present reading skills that are necessary for students to become more proficient readers.  Vocabulary study is an important adjunct to readers’ workshops.

Ancient Civilizations

Our Social Studies curriculum focuses on world geography and ancient civilizations. We start with the study of latitude and longitude, and then move on to archaeology, early humans, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Ancient Israelites, India, China, Greece, and Rome. We will be taking an in-depth look into the geography of these areas, the culture, and what it was like to live at that time. As an integral part of our Social Studies curriculum, we will also be studying the beliefs and religions of these civilizations and will be doing comparisons of their differences and similarities.