1st Quarter Learning Curriculum

Our learning units and lessons are guided and pre-determined by the Common Core Learning Standards and Benchmarks. This is what we must accomplish in all subject areas for 5th and 6th grades:

Reading and Writing / Language Arts:

Literature

SG1A - Students who meet the standard can apply word analysis and vocabulary skills to comprehend selections.

Concepts Covered:

Use prefixes, suffixes, and root words to understand word meanings.
Apply knowledge of structural analysis to construct meaning of unfamiliar words.
Determine the meaning of words in context using denotation and connotation strategies.
Recall multiple meanings of a word in context and select appropriate meaning.
Identify and interpret idioms, similes, analogies, and metaphors to express implied meanings.
Identify the effect of literary devices (e.g., figurative language, description, and dialogue) in text.

SG1C - Students who meet the standard can comprehend a broad range of reading materials.

Use inferences to improve and/or expand knowledge obtained from text and ask open-ended questions to improve critical thinking skills.
Synthesize key points and supporting details to form conclusion and to apply text information to personal experience.
Identify story elements, major and secondary themes in text.
Explain how story elements and themes contribute to the reader's understanding of text.
Compare themes, topic, and story elements of various selections across content areas.
Select reading strategies for text appropriate to the reader's purpose.
Recognize similarities and differences when presented with varying styles or points of view.
Recognize the influence of media on a reader's point of view concerning the interpretation of fiction or non-fiction materials.
Recognize how illustrations reflect cultural styles of art and enhance meaning.
Explain why some points are illustrated.
Evaluate imagery and figurative language.
Use text information to interpret tables, maps, visual aids, or charts.
Apply appropriate reading strategies to fiction and non-fiction texts within and across content areas.

Language Arts

SG3A - Students who meet the standard can use correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization and structure.

Develop compositions that include a variety of sentence structures (i.e., simple, compound, complex, compound/complex) and sentence types (i.e., interrogative, exclamatory, imperative, declarative).
Use transitional words and phrases within and between paragraphs.
Proofread for correct English conventions.
Demonstrate appropriate use of the eight parts of speech.

SG4A - Students who meet the standard can listen effectively in formal and informal situations.

Focus attention on speaker as sender of the message.
Record appropriate notes and rough outlines while listening.
Decide factors that will impact the message (e.g., dialect, language styles, setting, word choice).
Use appropriate words to describe elements such as word choice, pitch, volume, posture, tone, facial expressions, gestures, and proximity.
Determine meaning from speaker's words, voice, and body.
Differentiate between a speaker's factual and emotional content by analyzing verbal/nonverbal messages.
Separate main ideas, facts, and supporting details in oral messages.
Infer and draw conclusions (i.e., "if this is what you are saying, may I correctly conclude that …").
Synthesize, analyze, and evaluate information.
Paraphrase and summarize, in both oral and written form, information in formal/informal presentations.
Ask and respond to relevant questions.
Follow a multi-step set of instructions to complete a task.
Modify, control, block out both internal and external distractions.

Math:

6A - Students who meet the standard can demonstrate knowledge and use of numbers and their many representations in a broad range of theoretical and practical settings. (Representations)

Represent any large number using scientific notation.
Show relationships between sets of numbers, including rational numbers, whole numbers, natural numbers, and integers.

6B - Students who meet the standard can investigate, represent, and solve problems using number facts, operations and their properties, algorithms, and relationships. (Operations and properties)

Write prime factorizations using exponents.
Describe relationships between prime factorizations and properties of squares, primes, and composites.
Classify numbers according to the number of whole number factors (e.g., square numbers have an odd number of factors).
Demonstrate and describe the effects of multiplying or dividing by a fraction less than or greater than one.
Simplify arithmetic expressions containing exponents using the field properties and the order of operations.
Justify rules of divisibility for 2, 5, and 10.
Solve multi-step number sentences and word problems with rational numbers using the four basic operations.

6C - Students who meet the standard can compute and estimate using mental mathematics, paper-and-pencil methods, calculators, and computers. (Choice of method)

Select, use, and justify appropriate operations, methods, and tools to compute or estimate with integers and familiar rational numbers. **
Develop, use, and explain strategies to compute exact answers mentally with integers and simple rational numbers using a variety of techniques (e.g., estimate and compensate, halve and double, compatible numbers, decomposition and recomposition using the distributive property).
Analyze algorithms for computing with rational numbers and develop fluency in their use. **

6D - Students who meet the standard can solve problems using comparison of quantities, ratios, proportions, and percents.

Work flexibly with fractions, decimals, and percents to solve number sentences and word problems (e.g., 50% of 10 is the same as 1/2 of 10 is the same as 0.5 x 10). **
Create and explain ratios and proportions that represent quantitative relationships.
Create and explain a variety of equivalent ratios to represent a given situation.
Develop, use, analyze, and explain methods for solving numeric or word problems involving proportions. **

Social Studies and U. S. History:

15A - Students who meet the standard understand how different economic systems operate in the exchange, production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

Explain that consumer demand determines what producers will produce in a market economy.
Identify the productive resources households sell to businesses and the payments received for those resources.
Identify the goods and services businesses sell to households and the payments received for those goods and services.
Identify times when students or adults are consumers and when students or adults are producers.

15B - Students who meet the standard understand that scarcity necessitates choices by consumers.

Explain why people are both consumers and producers.
Identify markets where buyers and sellers meet face-to-face and markets in which buyers and sellers never meet directly.
Explain the benefits to consumers of competition among sellers.
Analyze the impact on prices of competition among buyers.

15C - Students who meet the standard understand that scarcity necessitates choices by producers.

Analyze how changes in price affect producer behavior.
Identify non-price incentives to which people respond in the economy.
Explain why people's response to an incentive may vary because of differing values.
Predict the impact on supply of a good or service when non-price determinants change (e.g., number of producers; cost of production).

15D - Students who meet the standard understand trade as an exchange of goods or services.

Identify exports produced in the local community or state.
Explain why countries benefit when they exchange goods and services.
Explain how specialization usually increases productivity in an economy.
Provide examples of how specialization increases interdependence among consumers and producers.
Explain how technological changes have led to new and improved products.
Explain how people's incomes reflect choices they have made about education, training, skill development, and careers.

15E - Students who meet the standard understand the impact of government policies and decisions on production and consumption in the economy.

Identify laws and government policies that protect property rights, enforce contracts, and maintain competition.
Explain why there is a role for government in the economy.
Explain how laws and government policies affecting the economy have changed over time.

16A - Students who meet the standard can apply the skills of historical analysis and interpretation.

Place events from a chronology on multiple tier timelines that are organized according to political, economic, environmental, and social history.
Organize a series of related historical events for depiction on a periodization chart.
Describe life during a specific period using multiple tier timelines, periodization charts, graphs, and charts with data organized by category.
Provide an example of two different interpretations of a significant event.
Explain how a significant historical event can have many causes.

15A - Students who meet the standard understand how different economic systems operate in the exchange, production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

Explain that consumer demand determines what producers will produce in a market economy.
Identify the productive resources households sell to businesses and the payments received for those resources.
Identify the goods and services businesses sell to households and the payments received for those goods and services.
Identify times when students or adults are consumers and when students or adults are producers.

15B - Students who meet the standard understand that scarcity necessitates choices by consumers.

Explain why people are both consumers and producers.
Identify markets where buyers and sellers meet face-to-face and markets in which buyers and sellers never meet directly.
Explain the benefits to consumers of competition among sellers.
Analyze the impact on prices of competition among buyers.

15C - Students who meet the standard understand that scarcity necessitates choices by producers.

Analyze how changes in price affect producer behavior.
Identify non-price incentives to which people respond in the economy.
Explain why people's response to an incentive may vary because of differing values.
Predict the impact on supply of a good or service when non-price determinants change (e.g., number of producers; cost of production).

15D - Students who meet the standard understand trade as an exchange of goods or services.

Identify exports produced in the local community or state.
Explain why countries benefit when they exchange goods and services.
Explain how specialization usually increases productivity in an economy.
Provide examples of how specialization increases interdependence among consumers and producers.
Explain how technological changes have led to new and improved products.
Explain how people's incomes reflect choices they have made about education, training, skill development, and careers.

15E - Students who meet the standard understand the impact of government policies and decisions on production and consumption in the economy.

Identify laws and government policies that protect property rights, enforce contracts, and maintain competition.
Explain why there is a role for government in the economy.
Explain how laws and government policies affecting the economy have changed over time.

16A - Students who meet the standard can apply the skills of historical analysis and interpretation.

Place events from a chronology on multiple tier timelines that are organized according to political, economic, environmental, and social history.
Organize a series of related historical events for depiction on a periodization chart.
Describe life during a specific period using multiple tier timelines, periodization charts, graphs, and charts with data organized by category.
Provide an example of two different interpretations of a significant event.
Explain how a significant historical event can have many causes.

17A - Students who meet the standard can locate, describe and explain places, regions and features on Earth.

Compare sketch maps with atlas maps to determine the accuracy of physical and cultural features (e.g., political/physical maps of Canada, the United States, and Europe).
Develop maps and flowcharts showing major patterns of movement of people and commodities (e.g., international trade in petroleum, countries that produce and those that consume resources, cartograms, population pyramids).
Explain the purposes and distinguishing characteristics of selected map projections, globes, aerial photos, and satellite images.
Demonstrate understanding of the spatial distribution of various phenomena by using latitude and longitude to plot data on a base map of the United States or the world (e.g., location of professional sports teams in the U.S. or the world).

17B - Students who meet the standard can analyze and explain characteristics and interactions of Earth's physical systems.

Explain how Earth-Sun relationships affect Earth's energy balance (e.g., heating of soil and water at different seasons of the year, differential heating at different latitudes).
Identify and describe different climates in terms of precipitation and temperature and the types of plants and animals associated with each using pictures, maps, and graphs.
Analyze maps to determine the relationship among climate, natural vegetation, and natural resources.
Predict the effects of an extreme weather phenomenon on the physical environment (e.g., a hurricane's impact on a coastal ecosystem).

18A - Students who meet the standard can compare characteristics of culture as reflected in language, literature, the arts, traditions, and institutions.

Describe what is studied within the field of anthropology.
Describe how a culture is reflected in its art, music, and/or architecture and institutions.
Explain how technology and the media have impacted expressive culture.
Analyze examples of patterns within literature, art, music, and/or architecture being transmitted from place to place.

18C - Students who meet the standard can understand how social systems form and develop over time.

Define the concept of diversity.
Assess the impact that commonly held beliefs have had on social groups in the United States over time.
Describe the contributions of significant individuals and groups to the common belief system of the United States.
Describe how citizens and government can cooperate or have cooperated to solve an important social problem.
Predict what social problems will become more pressing in the future.

Science:

Have a working knowledge of the processes of scientific inquiry and technological design to investigate questions, conduct experiments, and solve problems.