Education Commons^™

The Chemistry Of Making Soap: Chemical And Physical Changes In 6th Grade Science, Samantha Bos

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

This unit is designed primarily for 6th grade students, but it can be paired to work with 10th grade curriculum as well. In the unit, students will be introduced to elements and compounds before moving into identifying chemical changes. As part of the final lab, students will create soap.

Please note that this unit has multiple hands-on activities that require many household products or items to be brought and used in classroom experiments. This unit also uses Stemscopes, a purchased curriculum. When possible free alternative assignments are provided to the Stemscopes activities.

Changing Times: The Renaissance, Scientific Revolution, And Reformation [6th Grade], Bethany Lorge

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This unit looks at the impact that the Renaissance, Scientific Revolution, and Reformation had on the world. It traces important people and ideas, and highlights the impact that each of these time periods had on the immediate and future world. For the Performance Task, the students create a newspaper, called "The Changing Times" that requires them to analyze the impact that inventions and ideas from these time periods had on the world, as well as look at futuristic inventions (to our time) and the possible impact they will have on our world.

Write Your Own Autobiography [6th Grade], Jeanine Capitani

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This is a unit meant to be done near the beginning of the school year after reviewing the writing process and discuss writing requirements for the year. Beginning with sharing the teacher’s autobiography gives the students a background on their teacher and helps them identify with the teacher. Writing a personal autobiography will allow students to share parts of their lives with their peers and to gain a better understanding of their own history and their goals for the future.

Study Of Identity Formation Through The Light In The Forest By Conrad Richter [6th Grade], Anna Clark

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The Light in the Forest by Conrad Richter is an historical fiction Young Adult novel about a teenage boy, True Son, who was captured by American Indians as a young child, grew up as an adopted member of the tribe, and is then forcibly returned to his white family at age fifteen. The central theme of the book is True Son’s conflict with his identity and the questions of who his true family is and where his allegiance should lie.

During this unit, students will complete most of the reading assignments outside of class. Spread throughout different stages of the …

Converting And Ordering Rational Numbers [6th Grade], Danielle Kunetz, Melanie Webb

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The goal of this unit is for students to understand that numbers have equivalencies in many representations and in order to compare rational numbers, they must be expressed using the same representation.

Throughout the unit, students compare and order rational numbers first within the same representation, and then learn to convert between representations to compare numbers between different forms.

The unit culminates with the students using what they have learned to analyze statistics of a basketball team in order to form a starting line-up with what they perceive to be the best players on the team.

Some supplementary materials were …

Culture And Identity In Your Community And The World [6th Grade], Stephany Weaver, Anne Daly

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“Culture and Identity in your Community and the World” is an interdisciplinary unit designed to stimulate questions about identity and culture and how those two things relate. This unit is meant to be taught at the end of the first semester and the beginning of the second semester. Students have already established an understanding of literary elements in fiction and will now be searching for those same engaging elements in non-fiction.

As the students read the memoir Red Scarf Girl by Ji-li Jiang in Reading, they will be studying the effects of culture and community on a single person’s identity …

Reading Music-Abc’S, 123’S, Do Re Mi’S [6th Grade], Jessica Koppe

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In this unit, students will get an introduction to reading music at the middle school level in choir. This unit is theory intensive and meant to help students strengthen their basic music reading skills to provide a strong foundation for the ensemble and its ability to do more difficult music. This unit is not preparing students for a concert, so it may need to be spread out depending on the school’s needs and required performances. Activities are meant to keep students engaged in theory. By the end of the unit, students will be able to sing a major scale using …

Making Writing Personal [6th Grade], Kathleen Fenske

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In this unit, students will view nonfiction and fiction as a commentary on an author’s personal life and on society, particularly the life of a migrant worker. Students will also begin to view writing as a process and as a reflection of self. Students will begin the unit by delving into the following questions: How does literature reflect a culture or time period? What can we learn from the past? To what extent can fiction reveal truth? Should a story teach you something? Why write? Why share personal experiences in writing? What makes writing worth reading? Through these questions, students …

Exploring Media [6th Grade], Kathleen Fenske

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In this unit, students will explore media and will focus on how media has different forms based on its purposes, how it can persuade viewers or readers using a variety of elements and tools, and how it reflects a society's values. Students will begin the unit by delving into it with the following questions: What is media? Why do we use different forms of media? Newspapers? Magazine? Internet? Television? Radio? How do effective advertisements hook the consumers? How do we "read" media? Should we believe everything we see and hear? Does media reflect a society or does it shape how …

Walk This Way (Force And Motion) [6th Grade], Anne Cowell

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The goal of this unit is for students to understand: An object’s motion is dependent on the forces that are acting or have acted on it. An object’s motion can be pictured in a graph or be determined from a graph. The unit addresses balanced and unbalanced forces, types of forces, speed, and reviews graphing to address the understandings and the district expectations.

What Is Poetry? [6th Grade], Kathleen Fenske

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This unit focuses on the definition of poetry, its elements, and the types of poetry. The unit explores 4 essential questions: What is poetry? What is the difference between poetry and prose? How do you read a poem? What makes a poem great? Since poetry is an abstract term for most students, students will explore how poetry is different from prose. They will come to understand that it is written with a specific structure and that each aspect of a poem has a purpose. Students will read, analyze, and write poetry. They will begin the unit by responding to the …

Cells [6th Grade], Roxanne Hammonds

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Students will be able to identify, illustrate, and describe the main types of cells and their organelles. They will determine the major differences between eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells. They will know that all living things are made of cells, and that each part of the cell performs a specific function. They will also recognize the organization of living things from cell to organism. More importantly, students will understand that cells are part of a system. The performance assessment will gauge their knowledge of this by comparing the structures and functions of a cell to those of their own school.

Our World In Space [6th Grade], Courtney Spickelmier

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All the components of our solar system and universe function as a system. • Gravity is the force that holds our solar system and our universe together. • Our sun and our solar system is one of hundreds of billions in our galaxy and our galaxy is one of hundreds of billions in our universe. • As Technology (including telescopes, satellites, and space travel) expands so does our knowledge of our universe, but our knowledge and technology is limited.

Ratios And Proportions [6th Grade], Lisa Murphy

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In this unit students will be introduced to ratios and proportions. Students will have practice identifying ratios from pictures, graphs, models and word problems. Using these skills, students will then be able to identify proportional ratios and use ratios to describe proportional situations as well as to predict outcomes. To demonstrate their knowledge of ratios and proportional reasoning, students will complete a project assessment. The students will be given a recipe and then have to calculate the amounts of ingredients needed for various numbers of servings. The students will write down new versions of the recipes to be included in …

Fractions [6th Grade], Carol Von Hoff

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Fractions are part of a whole or part of a group (set). Fractions are equal to each other in different forms (example: ½ = 2/4). Fractions can be simplified.

Discovery Through Nonfiction [6th Grade], Allison Grant

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In this unit students will read a variety of informative and literary nonfiction texts focusing on the tragedy and discovery of the Titanic. The readings will provide them with the opportunity to uncover the understandings that discovery is the illumination of information, discovery leads us to understand the truth, and discovering types and features of nonfiction makes us more effective readers. Through discussion with their classmates and creation of several graphic organizers, students will answer the question “what is discovery and what is it not?” As students read the nonfiction books 882 ½ Amazing Answers to Your Questions About the …

Discovering Our World [6th Grade], Vanessa Sanchez

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In this unit for 6th graders, students will bridge their understanding between reading for information and reading solely for entertainment. Students will develop an understanding of the connection between discovery and reading as well as understanding that they are discoverers in their own right. Students will construct a fact book that includes information from various sources on the areas we have covered as well as constructing an analysis and explanation of their decisions. The assessments will provide students the framework to adjust perceptions and utilization of resources to match the purpose of their actions. In the end, students will understand …

Matter [6th Grade], Anne Cowell

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In this unit students will identify matter by its chemical and physical properties and begin learning how to write sections of a lab report. Students will also practice using scientific equipment especially graduated cylinders, beakers, and triple beam balances.

Survival Stories [6th Grade], Allison Grant

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In this unit students will read historical fiction and nonfiction texts focusing on the tragedy of the Titanic. The readings will provide them with the opportunity to uncover the understandings that the genre of a text not only determines its purpose but also informs our approach to reading and that survivors make adjustments or adaptations in their lives in order to overcome significant challenges or difficulties. As students read the historical fiction book Voyage on the Great Titanic accompanied by various newspaper articles and nonfiction sources on the sinking of the ship, they will answer the question why does genre …