MIDDLE school
GRADE 5 & 6 CURRICULUM
Our middle school program begins with a unique experience in grades 5 and 6 where we foster a smooth transition out of the self-contained classrooms of lower school by having a shared teaching model for the first two years. This allows faculty to delve deeply into their content expertise and engage students in differentiated learning to meet their needs. Students develop independence as they travel around campus for World Language, Art, Drama, Music and Physical Education classes. While building their confidence and autonomy, students retain a strong team-teaching structure to guide their growth.
5th grade students taking this course will expand their number sense and estimation skills by familiarizing themselves with specific number sets, properties, and operations that they will use throughout middle school. Students are also introduced to formal set notation. Number sets include natural numbers, whole numbers, integers, rational, irrational, real, and imaginary numbers. Properties include zero property, property of one, commutative, associative and inverse properties. Other topics relating to numbers will include even and oddness, prime and composite numbers, factors, multiples, prime factorization, GCF, LCM, comparison between base two and base ten number systems, bases and exponents, scientific notation, equations and expressions involving numbers and variables, and order of operations.
In 6th grade, students will reflect on their current understanding of geometric relationships and expand that understanding through hands-on explorations and investigations of the world around them. They will then be guided to model those relationships algebraically and defend those models through discourse, in written form and through presentations. Student inquiry and cooperative learning create the structure for this course. There will also be a significant emphasis on mathematical vocabulary.
Middle School students taking this course will be exposed to a variety of mathematical topics including but not limited to: Euclidean geometry; points as geometric building blocks; zero through three dimensionality with emphasis on a Cartesian system; properties of plane figures such as triangles, quadrilaterals, other polygons, and circles; metric and standard measurement of perimeter, area, circumference and volume of both regular and irregular figures; transformational geometry: translation, rotation, dilation and reflection; and creating, writing and solving algebraic expressions and equations.
The English/Language Arts curriculum consists of reading, writing, spelling, grammar, listening, performing, and vocabulary study. Students develop reading strategies through the use of modeling, assessment, guided reading groups, independent reading time, goal setting, the creative problem solving process, direct instruction in reading strategies, and by listening to texts read aloud by others. Students reflect on and interact with what was read both orally and through written response.
Students will read and learn from a variety of genres of texts, including non-fiction. Teaching and learning will focus on learning strategies good readers employ to read smoothly and to comprehend increasingly difficult texts. Students in grade 5 further their knowledge of literary elements by adding characterization, types of conflict, and theme to the known elements of plot, setting and character.
Writing focuses on, but is not confined to, informational. The students work with a variety of writing strategies and genres–such as persuasive essay, poetry, short story, memoir, and research–based to communicate with different audiences.
The grade 5 Social Studies course focuses on the five themes of geography: history, geography, government, cultures, and economics as they apply to North America, Central America, and South America.
The grade 6 Social Studies course focuses on geography, history, cultures, and peoples of ancient civilizations. Students will examine Mesopotamia, Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient India, Ancient China, Ancient Rome, Ancient Hebrews, and Medieval Europe, facilitated by the five facets of geography (history, geography, government, cultures, and economics) as they apply to the above named regions. The major turning points of the eastern hemisphere that segue into seventh grade social history of the United States are a primary focus.
A major focus is on the development of research skills. The students utilize a variety of sources such as online websites and databases, atlases, encyclopedias, books and magazines to locate information relating to their studies in the course
The science courses are organized into four units: Life Science, Earth Science, Physical Science, and Space and Technology. Each unit contains a balance between key science content and hands-on laboratory activities that support each topic.
The objective of world language instruction at The Park School is to promote global cultural awareness and skills in the areas of reading, writing, speaking, and listening in the target language. The overall goal is to develop competency toward attaining mastery in a second language.
The World Languages Department focuses its instruction on the development of global citizens by fostering verbal communication skills and cross-cultural understandings. This is accomplished through the development of effective oral and written communication, building a curiosity regarding the world outside of one’s own community, and promoting critical thinking through investigation and project-based experiences.
Another goal of the world language department is to encourage students to work cooperatively with others to improve interpersonal skills in an effort to imitate real-life work settings.
GRADE 7 CURRICULUM
While grade 5 is a transition from Lower School to Middle School, grade 7 is a transition to a set of new expectations. One of the most obvious changes from grade 6 to 7 is the move from a two teacher core program to a departmentalized schedule, which gives students the opportunity to work with five core teachers. Students in grades 7 must learn to organize their materials and supplies in different ways since they no longer have desks that are their personal spaces. They must plan to take the right materials and supplies to each class. In addition, in Grade 7 students begin to participate in The Park School’s advisory program, which provides supportive academic and personal guidance through both individual and small group structures that address the distinctive ethical, social, and academic needs of our students.
Prerequisite Skills: Proficiency with concepts and skills relating to fractions.
Throughout this course, students will apply their number sense, spatial reasoning, and algebraic skills to a variety of mathematical topics revolving around ratios and proportions, including but not limited to an in-depth look at ratios, rates, proportions, and percents, an exploration of probability as an application of ratios, using area models and manipulable tiles to explore variables and like terms, an introduction to slope as a rate of growth, the application of proportions by using the Law of Proportionality and by modeling similar shapes, and a review of right triangle geometry leading to an introduction to basic right triangle trigonometry.
A graphing calculator is recommended for this course, though not required. The chosen calculator must be able to do trigonometry.
Students in Grade 7 English at The Park School will read from a formally diverse body of literature that returns throughout the school year to three overarching thematic questions:
- Why do we read? Why do stories matter, and how do they help us better understand ourselves and the world around us?
- What does it mean to be an outsider or an ‘other’? Why is it important to read stories about people who are unlike ourselves?
- How does reading cultivate our capacity to empathize with and understand people who are different from us?
Through our works of literature, students will engage with the issues of economic, racial, and religious “otherness” that have bound and divided the peoples of the world throughout history in order to develop an awareness and appreciation of cultural diversity in our increasingly globalized world. They will also tackle the question of fiction’s importance in our lives and learn to appreciate the fundamental role stories play in allowing us to become more fully human.
Major works of literature will be supplemented by complementary texts in various forms–including poetry, short stories, and author interviews. Students will also work on the acquisition and retention of vocabulary words and their Latin and Greek roots.
This course will focus on the fundamentals of physical and human geography, especially in relation to the five themes of geography (location, region, place, movement, human and environment interaction). Students will apply these ideas to various ancient and contemporary cultures from around the world.
The Grade 7 life science course emphasizes the organization of life on Earth. Students begin the year by learning about cells and how they are organized, cell processes, and the biochemistry of cells. This is followed by a study of Mendelian genetics and molecular genetics. In the second semester, students study evolution and the history of life on Earth, followed by an overview of different forms of life with emphasis on members of the Plant and Animal Kingdoms and animal behavior. Students then study bacteria and viruses and how the human body reacts to and protects itself against foreign invaders (immune system).
During the course of the year, students also learn the scientific method and its application through activities done in class, some of which are student-designed. In addition, they practice skills, such as research and presentation, which they will need for future science classes. Students in this class will also be taught laboratory safety and how to use laboratory equipment.
The objective of world language instruction at The Park School is to promote global cultural awareness and skills in the areas of reading, writing, speaking, and listening in the target language. The overall goal is to develop competency toward attaining mastery in a second language.
Instruction focuses on the development of global citizens by fostering verbal communication skills and cross-cultural understandings. This is accomplished through the development of effective oral and written communication, building a curiosity regarding the world outside of one’s own community, and promoting critical thinking through investigation and project-based experiences.
The class is conducted in the language as much as possible in order to increase student exposure to the target language. Culture, history, geography, and literature are also interwoven into the curriculum so as to enhance the acquisition and development of language skills.
GRADE 8 CURRICULUM
Prerequisite Skills: Proficiency with concepts and skills relating to fractions and rates, ratios, and proportions.
Students taking this course will continue previous work in translating and evaluating expressions, translating and solving equations and inequalities, exploring the meanings of variables and growth rates of equations and inequalities, and working with exponents.
Students will work to build and grow a variety of mathematical skills including but not limited to polynomial operations and factoring, translating and solving equations and inequalities with absolute values and radicals, simplifying and performing operations on exponents and radicals, solving systems of equations and inequalities, and examining both explicit and recursive equations. In addition, students are formally introduced to the concept of a function, and the concepts of range and domain.
Grade 8 English focuses primarily on American literature to complement the students’ history studies. We study the various, multicultural perspectives that have led to the formation of the American (literary) identity, including but not limited to the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Abraham Lincoln, Langston Hughes, and Walt Whitman. We will discuss ideas like the American dream through the lenses of these texts, and we will interrogate how accessible that dream was and is for the diverse range of people living in the United States.
This course will explore the trajectory of American history through multiple cultural lenses and to examine our unique places within America’s historical narrative. The fall semester will focus on the history of the United States from the Pre-Columbian era through the American Revolution and the 18th century. Students acquire a broad foundational perspective and understanding of American history and its modern ramifications as the year progresses, as well as ethics/civics, culture, economics, social, and political developments.
The course covers the following critical units: Three Worlds Meet and the American Colonies Emerge; Independence for the Colonies; Launching the New Nation; the Union in Peril; the Civil War and Reconstruction; Immigrants, Urbanization and Industry; WWI and the Roaring 20’s; the Great Depression; WWII and the New Deal; and The Civil Rights Era.
Physical science is the study of the physical world, what it is made up of, and how it behaves. This course involves a wide range of topics exploring the fields of chemistry, physics, and space science and will prepare students for their high school science courses in these subjects. The content of this course will follow the recommendations of the New York State Science Learning Standards (NYSSLS), which are based off of the national Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
The following topics are included: forces & motion; energy storage & transfer; momentum; electric, magnetic, & gravitational fields; electrical circuits; planetary motion; our solar system; waves; mass, volume, & density; phases of matter; mixtures, elements, & compounds; the atom; the Periodic Table of Elements; and chemical reactions.
The objective of world language instruction at The Park School is to promote global cultural awareness and skills in the areas of reading, writing, speaking, and listening in the target language. The overall goal is to develop competency toward attaining mastery in a second language.
Instruction focuses on the development of global citizens by fostering verbal communication skills and cross-cultural understandings. This is accomplished through the development of effective oral and written communication, building a curiosity regarding the world outside of one’s own community, and promoting critical thinking through investigation and project-based experiences.
The class is conducted in the language as much as possible in order to increase student exposure to the target language. Culture, history, geography, and literature are also interwoven into the curriculum so as to enhance the acquisition and development of language skills.
