Curriculum Overviews > Sixth Grade

At The Branch School, the following objectives are taught through an integrated, developmental, hands-on, and in-depth approach that teaches critical thinking, problem-solving, and cooperative learning.

• Reading, where students read and understand a wide variety of literary and informational texts;
• Writing, where students compose a variety of written texts with a clear controlling idea, coherent organization, and sufficient detail;
• Research, where students are expected to know how to locate a range of relevant sources and evaluate, synthesize, and present ideas and information;
• Listening and Speaking, where students listen and respond to the ideas of others while contributing their own ideas in conversations and in groups;
• Oral and Written Conventions, where students learn how to use the oral and written conventions of the English language in speaking and writing.

• Students build a foundation of basic understandings in number, operation, and quantitative reasoning; patterns, relationships, and algebraic thinking; geometry and spatial reasoning; measurement; and probability and statistics.
• Students use concepts, algorithms, and properties of rational numbers to explore mathematical relationships and to describe increasingly complex situations.
• Students use algebraic thinking to describe how a change in one quantity in a relationship results in a change in the other; and they connect verbal, numeric, graphic, and symbolic representations of relationships.
• Students use geometric properties and relationships, as well as spatial reasoning, to model and analyze situations and solve problems.
• Students communicate information about geometric figures or situations by quantifying attributes, generalize procedures from measurement experiences, and use the procedures to solve problems.
• Students use appropriate statistics, representations of data, reasoning, and concepts of probability to draw conclusions, evaluate arguments, and make recommendations.

• Students are exposed to the basic elements of art and explore them in detail through projects that emphasize each specific art principle.  Students engage in exciting exploration with a variety of media such as painting, clay, pastels, etc.

• Students are taught basic library skills. They are read books appropriate to their level.

• Students sing, play rhythm instruments, and recorders. They learn to read and write music. They are exposed to music of various cultures as well as time periods. They are introduced to famous musicians and attend at least one live concert. They perform several times a year at school-wide events.

• Students learn to empathize with, feel comfortable in, and understand fundamental processes of nature.  They do this through a “working wildscape” partly accessible to children on the playground, partly fenced to allow more habitat development, and through horticulture activities from growing vegetables to propagating plants.

• Students acquire the knowledge and skills for movement that provide the foundation for enjoyment, continued social development through physical activity, and access to a physically active lifestyle. Students learn group games as well as sportsmanship.

• Students are taught the importance of peacemaking with their classmates using curriculum from Naomi Drew’s book, Learning the Skills of Peacemaking. They learn conflict resolution as well as communication skills. They learn to be life-long peacemakers. In addition, a curriculum on ethical decision-making designed by the Institute for Global Ethics, and a curriculum based on the book, CreatingClassrooms and Homes of Virtue, from the Council of Spiritual and Ethical Educationare used. Students practice creative thinking through brainstorming solutions to a variety of spontaneous problems. Students also are given opportunities to compose, create, and implement at least one school-wide program. The students are responsible for designing the sets, writing the scripts, and creating the costumes.

• Students are immersed in the Spanish language through a Spanish program two times a week.

• Students are taught basic word processing skills. They learn to access the Internet as well as use various software programs including Inspiration and Power Point.