MIDDLE GRADES CURRICULUM
GRADES 6-8
The upper grade program provides a rigorous academic curriculum that is developmentally responsive to the social, emotional, and behavioral needs of young adolescent students. The program follows a departmental model in which the students have one homeroom teacher and change classrooms for different subjects. The objective is to help students develop into independent and self-disciplined learners.
Developing life-long learners with a love of literacy is the goal for the upper grade reading and writing curriculum. The program is designed to create a more formal study of literature. Students take a deeper look into story development, character analysis, and literary themes. They also work to develop critical thinking skills, verbal reasoning, and abstract thinking. The Accelerated Reading program is used to encourage students to continually practice their reading skills and enhance their comprehension. Writing is an integral part of literacy instruction for the middle grades. Writing facilitates learning by helping students explore, clarify, and think deeply about the ideas and concepts they encounter while reading. Students learn to read and write fluently across a variety of genres by engaging in writing workshop. Writing includes: memoirs, critical essays, poetry, as well as short fiction and non-fiction articles.
Students continue to improve their math skills through our Connected Math Curriculum. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division equations are mastered and utilized in real world mathematical applications and algebraic form. Students learn to solve problems using proportions, formulas and linear functions. They also study measurement, geometry, probability, and statistics. Problem solving strategies are integrated with expository writing in order for students to develop proficiency in explaining rationale and further their reasoning skills.
Literacy is integrated into our science and social science curriculum as students learn to conduct research, analyze data, as well as prepare and present reports. Critical thinking skills are highly emphasized in both our science and social science curriculum. The students, at Peirce, participate in an annual intensive study of a specific country through our International Studies Curriculum. Student-made artifacts representing the country of study are showcased at our annual International Dinner in January and the International Exposition in the spring. Students that matriculate through our social science curriculum evolve to be culturally literate, empathetic students. Our upper grade students participate in Peirce’s Science and History Fairs and also compete at various Area 2 and Citywide competitions.
Continuing This Year:
Students in grades 4th-8th participate in the Rush NeuroBehavioral Center’s Executive Functions Program.
~~~ Please click on Executive Functions excerpt for more information regarding the RNBC program of study.
Students in grades 6th-8th will participate in the Tabula Digita © Educational Video Game resource from DimensionU.
~~~ Please click on Tabula Digita excerpt for more information regarding the program of study.
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