Fundamentals of a Good Sixth-Grade Education

“What should my child be learning in school?” If you’ve ever asked that question, this book can help.

What Your Sixth Grader Needs to Know is part of the eight-volume Core Knowledge Series—from What Your Preschooler Needs to Know through What Your Sixth Grader Needs to Know. The series offers parents, teachers, and children an  illustrated guide to the essential knowledge outlined in the Core Knowledge Sequence, including beloved stories and poems, familiar sayings, interesting information on history and geography, lively discussions of visual arts and music, and explanations and activities in math and science. Updated editions suggest related readings and resources, as well as age-appropriate questions that stimulate thinking and build vocabulary. The first grade volume also includes a section on how children learn to read.

This edition of What Your Sixth Grader Needs to Know (revised 2007) features:

• Illustrated favorite poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Maya Angelou, and more
• Episodes from great works of literature, including Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, and Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper
• Learning About Language, with explanations of four kinds of sentences, active and passive voice, Greek and Latin roots, and more
• Engaging introductions to world history from ancient Greece and the fall of the Roman Empire to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution; and American history of the post-Civil War era, including the Industrial Revolution, immigration, urbanization, and reform movements
• A brief history of the visual arts from classical works to the Renaissance, Baroque, and Romantic periods
• Introductions to basic musical terms and concepts, and to great composers including Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, and Chopin
• Concise explanations of math skills and concepts, ranging from probability and statistics to ratios and proportions to pre-algebra
• Opportunities to explore plate tectonics, the oceans, astronomy, the immune system, and more