Grade 6 Introduction

PRINT THIS PAGE

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 etending the notion of number to the s!stem of rational numbers,
which includes negative numbers; (") writing, interpreting, and using epressions
and e#uations; and ($) developing understanding of statistical thin%ing&
1& 'tudents use reasoning about multiplication and division to solve ratio and
rate problems about #uantities& (! viewing e#uivalent ratios and rates as
deriving from, and etending, pairs of rows (or columns) in the multiplication
table, and b! anal!)ing simple drawings that indicate the relative si)e of
#uantities, students connect their understanding of multiplication and division
with ratios and rates& *hus students epand the scope of problems for which
the! can use multiplication and division to solve problems, and the! connect
ratios and fractions& 'tudents solve a wide variet! of problems involving ratios
and rates&
2& 'tudents use the meaning of fractions, the meanings of multiplication and
division, and the relationship between multiplication and division to understand
and eplain wh! the procedures for dividing fractions ma%e sense& 'tudents use
these operations to solve problems& 'tudents etend their previous
understandings of number and the ordering of numbers to the full s!stem of
rational numbers, which includes negative rational numbers, and in particular
negative integers& *he! reason about the order and absolute value of rational
numbers and about the location of points in all four #uadrants of the coordinate
plane&
"& 'tudents understand the use of variables in mathematical epressions&
*he! write epressions and e#uations that correspond to given situations,
evaluate epressions, and use epressions and formulas to solve problems&
'tudents understand that epressions in different forms can be e#uivalent, and
the! use the properties of operations to rewrite epressions in e#uivalent
forms& 'tudents %now that the solutions of an e#uation are the values of the
variables that ma%e the e#uation true& 'tudents use properties of operations
and the idea of maintaining the e#ualit! of both sides of an e#uation to solve
simple one+step e#uations& 'tudents construct and anal!)e tables, such as
tables of #uantities that are in e#uivalent ratios, and the! use e#uations (such as
"x , y) to describe relationships between #uantities&
$& (uilding on and reinforcing their understanding of number, students begin
to develop their abilit! to thin% statisticall!& 'tudents recogni)e that a data
distribution ma! not have a de-nite center and that different wa!s to measure
center !ield different values& *he median measures center in the sense that it is
roughl! the middle value& *he mean measures center in the sense that it is the
value that each data point would ta%e on if the total of the data values were
redistributed e#uall!, and also in the sense that it is a balance point& 'tudents
recogni)e that a measure of variabilit! (inter#uartile range or mean absolute
deviation) can also be useful for summari)ing data because two ver! different
sets of data can have the same mean and median !et be distinguished b! their
variabilit!&
'tudents learn to describe and summari)e numerical data sets, identif!ing
clusters, pea%s, gaps, and s!mmetr!, considering the contet in which the data
were collected& 'tudents in Grade 6 also build on their wor% with area in
elementar! school b! reasoning about relationships among shapes to
determine area, surface area, and volume& *he! -nd areas of right triangles,
other triangles, and special #uadrilaterals b! decomposing these shapes,
rearranging or removing pieces, and relating the shapes to rectangles& .sing
these methods, students discuss, develop, and /ustif! formulas for areas of
triangles and parallelograms& 'tudents -nd areas of pol!gons and surface areas
of prisms and p!ramids b! decomposing them into pieces whose area the! can
determine& *he! reason about right rectangular prisms with fractional side
lengths to etend formulas for the volume of a right rectangular prism to
fractional side lengths& *he! prepare for wor% on scale drawings and
constructions in Grade 0 b! drawing pol!gons in the coordinate plane&
Grade 6 Overview
1atios and 2roportional 1elationships
.nderstand ratio concepts and use ratio reasoning to solve problems&
*he 3umber '!stem
4ppl! and etend previous understandings of multiplication and division to
divide fractions b! fractions&
5ultipl! and divide multi+digit numbers and -nd common factors and
multiples&
4ppl! and etend previous understandings of numbers to the s!stem of
rational numbers&
6pressions and 6#uations
4ppl! and etend previous understandings of arithmetic to algebraic
epressions&
1eason about and solve one+variable e#uations and ine#ualities&
1epresent and anal!)e #uantitative relationships between dependent and
independent variables&
Geometr!
'olve real+world and mathematical problems involving area, surface area,
and volume&
'tatistics and 2robabilit!
7evelop understanding of statistical variabilit!&
'ummari)e and describe distributions&
5athematical 2ractices
1& 5a%e sense of problems and persevere in solving them&
2& 1eason abstractl! and #uantitativel!&
"& 8onstruct viable arguments and criti#ue the reasoning of others&
$& 5odel with mathematics&
9& .se appropriate tools strategicall!&
6& 4ttend to precision&
0& :oo% for and ma%e use of structure&
;& :oo% for and epress regularit! in repeated reasoning&