6th Grade Math

By the end of sixth grade, students should be able to demonstrate the following math abilities. Many skills are worked on throughout the year and build on each other.

Compute with large numbers and decimals

• Quickly and accurately divide multi-digit numbers.
• Quickly and accurately add, subtract, multiply and divide multi-digit decimals.

Negative numbers

• Know examples of how we use negative numbers, including negative fractions (ex. negative temperatures in the winter, negative balance in a check book).
• Use number lines to show negative numbers and negative fractions.

Fractions
 

• Understand what it means to divide a fraction by a fraction.

Ratios and rate problems
 

• Understand the idea of a ratio and solve ratio problems. For example, on a soccer team the ratio of girls to boys is 3 to 2. If there are 15 girls on the soccer team, how many boys are there?
• Solve problems involving rates and prices. For example, if you drive at 60 miles per hour for 7 hours, how far have you driven? Or, if it takes 7 hours to mow 4 lawns, then how many lawns could be mowed in 35 hours?

Beginning algebra
 

• Understand numbers written with exponents, like 5².
• Use letters to stand for numbers when describing real-world situations, such as “I am 5 years older than Thomas, so I am T + 5."
• Solve problems using simple equations. For the example above, if I am 45 years old, the equation would be 45 = T + 5. So T = 40.
• Use the symbols for greater than (>) and less (<) than to describe situations where quantities are unequal. For example, if I pick x apples in a day, but I always need to pick more than 200, I could write x > 200 to describe how many apples I need to pick each day.

Area, surface area and volume

• Find the area of triangles, rhombuses and parallelograms.
• Find the volume and surface area of an object shaped like a box (length x width x height).

Data and statistics

• Find the average of a set of numbers.
• Display data using charts and graphs of various kinds.