David Zittergruen 5th and 6th Grade P: 952-474-5181 x37 E: david.zittergruen@oslcs.org Read Full Profile »

Grades 5-8 at Our Savior Lutheran School are departmentalized. Grade 5 is the transition year into the middle school. This means that students will have several teachers during their school day that are specialists in a particular field of study. In order to maintain a family-like atmosphere, each class also has a home-room teacher charged with monitoring the overall academic, social, and spiritual progress of individual students as well as the class as a whole.

Religion

The sixth grade materials of the Voyages curriculum are designed primarily to help students learn about the key concepts of faith such as Law, Gospel, confession, repentance, forgiveness, and grace. The majority of the lessons provide a summary of the life of Jesus and the history of the early Christian church. Each lesson centers on the cross of Christ and is grounded in the Word of God.

Language Arts

Literature
Middle school students in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade continue their course of study in reading through an in depth study of literature. Through the use of a carefully selected anthology, students study various forms of essay writing including persuasive and informational essays. Students study biographies and autobiographies. Various forms of genre include short story, novellas, poetry, and drama. Students discuss author’s view points, biases, the use of facts verses opinion, and first – person narratives in contrast to third – person narratives.
As students work through the anthology they also study the author’s development of the plot. They study the elements of exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. They also look at character motives and characteristics. Students explore the use of literary tools such as foreshadowing and flashback.Students develop skills in short answer and essay writing while organizing information in story maps, Venn diagrams, and charts of various forms and purposes.Each lesson introduces students to new vocabulary words and definitions. Students work many activities to develop their knowledge of synonyms, antonyms, word analogies, word roots, and word origin.

English
Your sixth grade student will review skills that have previously been learned and then build upon those skills. They include: the general skills of grammar, parts of speech, usage, mechanics, punctuation, spelling, vocabulary plus the skills of speaking, listening, study and thinking skills, and writing skills.

Spelling
Basic spelling principles using phonetics and vocabulary principles will be studied in the sixth grade curriculum. Students will broaden their vocabulary as they learn to spell new words. They will also develop their vocabulary skills.

Handwriting
Through practice and practical applications, students will make a thorough review of the basic elements of legible writing: letter size, slant, alignment, line, quality, and smoothness of line.

Math

The goal of the Math curriculum is to help the students build their MATH POWER. This means being able to understand and use Math. The sixth graders will work with place value and the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of positive and negative whole numbers, fractions, and mixed numbers. They will also work with the commutative, associative, and distributive properties. They will apply many different formulas to their math lessons. The sixth graders will be preparing themselves for Algebra.

Science

The more we learn about God’s marvelous creation the more we marvel at God’s amazing power and wisdom which he uses to care for us. The 5th and 6th grades join in a combined class for a general science course that introduces many different areas of science; cellular biology, plate tectonics, the nature of matter, oceanography and physical science, our solar system and beyond, energy and motion, light and sound and more. Classes include demonstrations and hands on activities. Students are often encouraged to work in groups to help each other learn. Children are encouraged to use the scientific method to explore God’s amazing creation.

Art

The students are exposed to a wide variety of art media and techniques. Art allows students to express their creativity. The students will be exposed to various art forms including drawing, painting, collage, sculpture, and design.

Social Studies

As we study world cultures, we realize that God made history for us to look at and learn from. In this curriculum we learn about ancient civilization from Egypt, the near East, Greece, Rome, China, and India. We will also do an in-depth study of the Aztec and Mayan cultures. Another important topic of study will be the changes in western civilization brought upon by the Renaissance and the Reformation. Finally, we will examine the world as it entered the twentieth century by studying World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.

Technology

Through the use of technology equipment, your child will: perform basic keyboarding skills, use the computer for educational research; understand the many functions of the computer; and understand and produce a PowerPoint presentation.