Math - Sixth Grade

In Grade 6, instructional time should focus on four critical areas: (1) connecting ratio and rate to whole number multiplication and division and using concepts of ratio and rate to solve problems; (2) completing understanding of division of fractions and extending the notion of number to the system of rational numbers, which includes negative numbers; (3) writing, interpreting, and using expressions and equations; and (4) developing understanding of statistical thinking. 

(1) Students will use reasoning about multiplication and division to solve ratio and rate problems about quantities. By viewing equivalent ratios and rates as deriving from, and extending, pairs of rows (or columns) in the multiplication table, and by analyzing simple drawings that indicate the relative size of quantities, students will connect their understanding of multiplication and division with ratios and rates. Thus students will expand the scope of problems for which they can use multiplication and division to solve problems, and they connect ratios and fractions. Students will solve a wide variety of problems involving ratios and rates. 

(2) Students will use the meaning of fractions, the meanings of multiplication and division, and the relationship between multiplication and division to understand and explain why the procedures for dividing fractions make sense. Students will use these operations to solve problems. Students will extend their previous understandings of number and the ordering of numbers to the full system of rational numbers, which includes negative rational numbers, and in particular negative integers. They will reason about the order and absolute value of rational numbers and about the location of points in all four quadrants of the coordinate plane. 

(3) Students will understand the use of variables in mathematical expressions. They will write expressions and equations that correspond to given situations, evaluate expressions, and use expressions and formulas to solve problems. Students will understand that expressions in different forms can be equivalent, and they will use the properties of operations to rewrite expressions in equivalent forms. Students will know that the solutions of an equation are the values of the variables that make the equation true. Students will use properties of operations and the idea of maintaining the equality of both sides of an equation to solve simple one-step equations. Students will construct and analyze tables, such as tables of quantities that are in equivalent ratios, and they will use equations (such as 3x = y) to describe relationships between quantities. 

(4) Building on and reinforcing their understanding of number, students will begin to develop their ability to think statistically. Students will recognize that a data distribution may not have a definite center and that different ways to measure center yield different values. The median measures center in the sense that it is roughly the middle value. The mean measures center in the sense that it is the value that each data point would take on if the total of the data values were redistributed equally, and also in the sense that it is a balance point. Students will recognize that a measure of variability (interquartile range or mean absolute deviation) can also be useful for summarizing data because two very different sets of data can have the same mean and median yet be distinguished by their variability. Students will learn to describe and summarize numerical data sets, identifying clusters, peaks, gaps, and symmetry, considering the context in which the data were collected. 

(5) Students in Grade 6 will also build on their work with area in elementary school by reasoning about relationships among shapes to determine area, surface area, and volume. They will find areas of right triangles, other triangles, and special quadrilaterals by decomposing these shapes, rearranging or removing pieces, and relating the shapes to rectangles. Using these methods, students will discuss, develop, and justify formulas for areas of triangles and parallelograms. Students will find areas of polygons and surface areas of prisms and pyramids by decomposing them into pieces whose area they can determine. They will reason about right rectangular prisms with fractional side lengths to extend formulas for the volume of a right rectangular prism to fractional side lengths. They will prepare for work on scale drawings and constructions in Grade 7 by drawing polygons in the coordinate plane.

View Mathematics Grade 6 Core Online and Printable Version

 

 

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