The Ethel Walker School
Curriculum: Grade 6
Walker’s History is an introductory course about the history of The Ethel Walker School. It gives students an in-depth look at the origins of the campus and surrounding area, including Ms. Ethel Walker herself. Collaborating with archivists, students will be able to comb through the archives, looking at photographs, mementos, letters, etc. Each student will then create their own scrapbook that shows the history of their lives that they would like to share; thereby getting hands-on experience in creating a history of themselves.
6th Grade Seminar: Study Skills
Grade 6
The 6th Grade Study Skills Seminar meets twice a week for a semester. Students focus on study skills and executive function strategies, such as sustained attention, task initiation, working memory, planning, and organization. Students work on skills-building activities from the SMARTS Executive Function Curriculum developed by the Research Institute for Learning and Development.
Middle School Orchestra
Open to Grades 6-8
This ensemble is for Middle School students who are interested in preparing and performing orchestral music. The Middle School Orchestra performs at Middle School concerts. This experience will prepare the musician for the Upper School Orchestra. All musicians at any level are welcome.
Meets outside of a class block
6th Grade Art Rotation – Foundations in Art
Required for Grade 6
This course explores the fundamentals of the visual and performing arts. Students gain experience in fine arts, dance, music, and digital arts. Coursework is designed to help each student develop their own identity through art, as well as self-confidence and independence. The curriculum connects with the Middle School program of study whenever possible and provides a well-rounded artistic basis for 7th and 8th grade and Upper School-level visual and performing arts courses.
Have you ever wondered how your body systems are affected by participating in sports, how the honey bee populations are affecting our food supply, or why we get storms in New England? We will explore questions like these in STEAM 6. STEAM is an integration of science, technology, engineering, art and math. This course allows our students to practice the science and engineering skills that professionals use every day, engage in hands-on exploration, and design projects as they explore the natural world. Students in STEAM 6 will use real-world phenomena such as athletic concussions, Lyme disease, honey bee populations, animal habitats, and destructive weather to deeply explore the topics of human body systems, reproduction and growth, energy transfer and weather, and climates and human impacts. Students will learn how to develop scientific and engineering questions that can be investigated within the scope of the classroom, outdoor environment, and museums and other public facilities with available resources. They will also learn how to frame a hypothesis based on observations and scientific principles, specify relationships between variables, clarify arguments, and begin to make models that lead into basic experimentation.
Basic computational skills are reviewed, and problem solving, patterns, estimating, and mental math skills are emphasized. Topics introduced include decimals, fractions, exponents, scientific notation, ratios, rates, proportions, percents, measurement, graphing in the coordinate plane, and an introduction to variables and solving algebraic equations.
Foundations in Language is a 6th grade course designed to give students a strong understanding of the mechanics of language, with an eye towards the foreign language study that will follow. Students will understand how language works through an exploration of words and their origins, grammar, sounds, and writing systems. Students will investigate the development of writing and different writing systems. Students will discover the etymologies of English words and learn how other languages, including French, Latin, and Spanish influenced the development of English. Students will undertake a survey of English grammar: exploring parts of speech, clauses, and sentences. Finally, students will be able to contrast human language with computational language systems.
The theme for sixth grade is “Laying Foundations,” and there is no better way for students to grapple with this theme than by learning about the foundations of humankind. Sixth grade humanities is an investigation into ancient civilizations through the lenses of history, geography, literature, the arts, belief systems, technology, architecture, and customs and traditions. Cultural sensitivity and ethical exploration are core principles of this hands-on, project-based class. Among other activities, students participate in an archaeological dig; create a mini-museum; design a 21st-century version of Babylon’s legendary hanging gardens; and prepare a Greek feast fit for the gods of Mount Olympus. Field trips to local historical societies and museums, coupled with outdoor excursions for native materials for projects, bring the research aspect of this class to life. Reading global mythologies and identifying the stories around which they have shaped their own lives helps students to connect with children of long ago and with those who live throughout the world today–including their own classmates.