Teaching Grade 6 at home

Prepare before the lesson

1. Read the unit's main idea and work through an example. Identify the earlier skill the method relies on.
2. Choose a short practice set that includes both a familiar example and a changed case. Have paper, a diagram or a number line ready when useful.
3. Locate the worked steps and common mistakes. Decide which step the learner should attempt before you offer a hint.

Teach, discuss and check

1. Ask for a prediction or estimate and a representation before starting an algorithm.
2. Explain one worked step and why it is valid. Let the learner complete the next step with less support.
3. Use an incorrect solution to discuss the reasoning, then give a changed problem without the model in view.
4. Check the result by substitution, units, another representation or an estimate. Ask when the method applies.

Judge the reasoning

Use these discussion criteria with the unit’s own marking guidance. They are a feedback framework, not a universal numerical grade.

• Chooses a suitable representation or relationship.
• Uses valid steps and carries the necessary units or conditions.
• Explains why the method answers the question.
• Checks the result and can adapt to a changed case.

Keep one worked example, one corrected error and one independent changed-case solution. Solving a practice question after retries is progress, but does not by itself establish independent mastery.

When the learner needs support

• When a procedure is memorized without meaning, return to a diagram or a small numerical example.
• When a prerequisite is missing, revisit the matching earlier unit rather than repeating a harder set unchanged.
• Separate an arithmetic slip from a misunderstanding of the relationship, and choose feedback accordingly.

Plan this course

Where middle school starts: decimals and fraction division, integers and the coordinate plane, ratios, rates and percents, expressions and one-step equations, area, surface area and volume, and a first look at data.

This math course has no authored weekly timetable in the Parent Center. Schedule its units or your own activities at a pace you choose.

No authored weekly timetable is available here. Schedule individual units and outside activities at your chosen pace.

Materials and records

Use paper, a suitable diagram or manipulatives, and the worked examples in the existing course.

Use the course assessments

Keep one worked example, one corrected error and one independent changed-case solution. Solving a practice question after retries is progress, but does not by itself establish independent mastery.

Read the full course guide

Units and teaching goals

• Unit 1 · Decimals & Long Division

  Place value carries on past the point, which is why the old methods still work.

• Unit 2 · GCF and LCM

  Prime factorisation answers both questions at once: shared factors give the GCF, and everything needed gives the LCM.

• Unit 3 · Dividing Fractions

  Dividing asks how many of these fit into that, and the answer can be bigger than you started with.

• Unit 4 · Integers & Absolute Value

  Below zero is a direction, and how far from zero is a separate question.

• Unit 5 · The Coordinate Plane

  Two numbers pin down any point, once you agree which one comes first.

• Unit 6 · Ratios & Ratio Tables

  A ratio compares two amounts, and scaling both by the same factor leaves it unchanged.

• Unit 7 · Unit Rates & Better Buys

  Reduce everything to one of something, and comparisons become obvious.

• Unit 8 · Percents

  Per cent means per hundred, so every percent is a fraction with a hundred underneath.

• Unit 9 · Expressions & Order of Operations

  A letter stands for a number you have not been told yet, and the order of operations settles what a written expression means.

• Unit 10 · One-Step Equations

  An equation is a balanced scale, and whatever you do to one side you must do to the other.

• Unit 11 · Inequalities

  Some questions have a whole range of answers, and a number line is how you show them all.

• Unit 12 · Area of Triangles & Quadrilaterals

  Every area formula in this unit comes from a rectangle that has been cut up or rearranged.

• Unit 13 · Surface Area & Nets

  Unfold a solid and its surface becomes a flat shape whose area you already know how to find.

• Unit 14 · Volume with Fractional Edges

  Volume still counts cubes — but when the cubes are smaller than one unit, counting is not the whole answer.

• Unit 15 · Statistical Questions & Distributions

  A statistical question is one that expects a spread of answers, not a single one.

• Unit 16 · Centre & Spread

  One number for the middle is never enough, because two very different groups can share an average.

• Unit 17 · Reading Graphs & Estimation

  A graph is an argument. Read the scale before the shape, or you will believe whatever it wants you to believe.