Everything you're learning this year — the tricks that make it easy, the traps that catch everybody, and what to practise. Pick your name.
This year you learn something big: numbers can be taken apart. 8 is really 5 and 3. 47 is really 4 tens and 7 ones.
Once you can take numbers apart and put them back together, hard maths turns easy. You don't have to be fast. You have to be a number-taker-aparter.
1.OA.6 · 1.OA.1
Add and take away up to 20. Everything to 10 should be so easy you don't even think.
1.OA.4 · 1.OA.8
13 − 8 is really asking: 8 plus what makes 13? Minus is a hunt for a missing piece.
1.OA.7
It means the same as — not "answer next". So 7 = 8 − 1 is true, and 4 + 1 = 5 + 2 is false.
1.NBT.1
Start anywhere — 87! — and keep going. Write the numbers too.
1.NBT.2
47 is 4 tens and 7 ones. The first digit counts bundles of ten.
1.NBT.5
In your head, no counting: 43 → 53 → 63. Only the tens digit moves!
1.NBT.3
Use >, < and =. Check the tens first. 38 < 41 because 3 tens is less than 4 tens.
1.MD.3
O'clock and half past. Short hand = hour, long hand = minutes.
1.MD.5
Know what every coin is worth. Careful — bigger coin doesn't mean more money!
1.G.3
Cut a shape into 2 or 4 equal pieces. Equal means exactly the same size.
1.MD.1 · 1.MD.2
Line things up from the same starting point, and lay your units end to end with no gaps.
1.MD.4
Put things in up to three groups, count them, and say which has most and least.
These are the most useful facts in first grade. They're what makes 8 + 5 easy: 8 wants 2, so 8 + 5 becomes 10 + 3 = 13.
If you know 7 + 7 = 14, then 7 + 8 is just one more = 15. And 7 + 6 is one less = 13. Two facts for the price of one!
Counting money? Start with the biggest coin. 25, then 35, then 40, then 41…
1.R.2
Break a spoken word into sounds — cat is /c/ /a/ /t/. No letters, just ears.
1.R.3
Blend letters into words, including two letters that make one sound like sh, ch, th.
1.R.4
Read a page smoothly enough that you still know what it said at the end.
1.R.6 · 1.R.7
Say what the story was mostly about, who was in it, where it happened, what happened.
1.R.10
Tell a story book from a facts book — and say how you know.
1.W.3 · 1.W.5
Write two or more things that happened, using first, next, then, last. Neat letters!
At school this is Heggerty for the ear work and Wonders for reading, plus Really Great Reading phonics. The ear work matters most: if you can't hear the three sounds in cat, spelling it is guessing.
1.1.1
They move in patterns that repeat, so you can predict them. The Sun always rises in the east.
1.1.2 · 1.1.3
Summer days are long, winter days are short. You can measure it!
1.2.1
Sunlight and water. Prove it by growing two plants and giving one less.
1.2.3 · 1.2.4
Baby animals and plants look like their parents — but not exactly. And parents help babies survive.
1.3.1
Every sound comes from something wobbling. Hum with a hand on your throat and feel it.
1.3.2 · 1.3.3
Some things block light and make shadows, some let it through, some bounce it back.
Taught with Mystery Science. Every single one of these you can test at home — which is the point. Science isn't remembering, it's showing.
Third grade has one wall in it: times tables. Everything after this year — fractions, division, area, algebra — stands on top of them.
The other big idea: a fraction is a number. It has a spot on the number line, just like 5 does. Not a picture of pizza. A number.
3.OA.7
By the end of the year these are instant. That's the actual goal written in the standard.
3.OA.1 · 3.OA.2
5 × 7 means 5 groups of 7. And 56 ÷ 8 means "how many 8s fit in 56?"
3.OA.6
56 ÷ 8 = ? is the same as 8 × ? = 56. If you know one, you know the other.
3.OA.5
7 × 8 too hard? Split it: 7 × 8 = (7 × 4) + (7 × 4) = 28 + 28 = 56.
3.OA.8
Some problems need two moves. Write down what you're finding first, before you start.
3.NF.1 · 3.NF.2
3/4 lives between 0 and 1 on the number line. The bottom says how many pieces the whole is cut into.
3.NF.3
1/2 = 2/4 = 4/8. Same spot on the line, different outfit. Compare fractions too.
3.NBT.1
To the nearest 10 or 100. Exactly halfway (like 45) rounds up.
3.NBT.2
Fluently — and check it with rounding: 412 + 289 should land near 700.
3.NBT.3
6 × 70 = 6 × 7 with a zero stuck on = 420.
3.MD.5 · 3.MD.6 · 3.MD.7
Area is how many squares cover it — which is why area = length × width.
3.MD.8
Perimeter is the walk around the edge. Add up every side.
3.MD.1
Read it, write it, and work out how long something took.
3.MD.2
Grams, kilograms, litres. Measure and estimate them.
3.MD.3
Careful — one square might mean 5, not 1. Always read the scale first.
3.G.1 · 3.G.2
A square is also a rectangle. Split shapes into equal-area parts.
| × | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 12 | 14 | 16 | 18 | 20 |
| 3 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 15 | 18 | 21 | 24 | 27 | 30 |
| 4 | 8 | 12 | 16 | 20 | 24 | 28 | 32 | 36 | 40 |
| 5 | 10 | 15 | 20 | 25 | 30 | 35 | 40 | 45 | 50 |
| 6 | 12 | 18 | 24 | 30 | 36 | 42 | 48 | 54 | 60 |
| 7 | 14 | 21 | 28 | 35 | 42 | 49 | 56 | 63 | 70 |
| 8 | 16 | 24 | 32 | 40 | 48 | 56 | 64 | 72 | 80 |
| 9 | 18 | 27 | 36 | 45 | 54 | 63 | 72 | 81 | 90 |
| 10 | 20 | 30 | 40 | 50 | 60 | 70 | 80 | 90 | 100 |
Only 6 facts are genuinely hard: 6×7, 6×8, 7×7, 7×8, 8×8, and 6×6. Learn those six and the table is basically finished. Fact Dash on this site hunts down whichever ones you keep missing.
9 × 7 = 70 − 7 = 63. And the 9s digits always add to 9: 63 → 6+3 = 9. Check yourself with that!
Same-top rule: with the same top number, the bigger bottom means smaller pieces. 1/8 is smaller than 1/3, even though 8 > 3. More cuts = smaller slices.
That's four facts from one. There aren't 100 things to learn — there are about 25 families.
3.R.8
"Fast as lightning" doesn't mean actual lightning. Work out what it really means.
3.R.5
Answer questions about a text and point at the bit that proves you're right.
3.R.7
Explain how what a character does changes what happens next.
3.R.10 · 3.R.12
Headings, captions, diagrams, bold words — they're there to help. Use them.
3.R.14
Compare the themes, settings and plots of two stories — especially by the same author.
3.W.1 · 3.W.5
Write an opinion and back it up with reasons. And yes — cursive, all the letters.
School uses Wonders, with i-Ready alongside. Third grade is the year reading switches from learning to read to reading to learn — which is why smooth reading matters so much now.
3.1.1
Read a table or graph of weather data and work out which season it's showing.
3.1.2
Weather is today. Climate is what's normal over years. Different places, different normal.
3.1.3
Design something that reduces damage from a flood, hail or wind.
3.2.1
Birth, growth, reproduction, death — and how different animals do it differently.
3.2.2 · 3.2.3
Some traits are inherited. Some come from where you live — a plant in the dark grows differently.
3.2.4 · 3.2.5
In any habitat, some survive well, some badly, some not at all — and traits explain which.
3.3.1 · 3.3.2
Balanced forces = no change. Unbalanced = it speeds up, slows down or turns.
3.3.3
Things fall down because Earth pulls them toward its centre.
3.3.4 · 3.3.5
Forces that work without touching. Design something that uses a magnet to solve a problem.
Taught with Mystery Science. Notice how many standards say design a solution — third-grade science wants you building, not just knowing.
Two things change everything. First, numbers go negative — the number line keeps going left, and the plane gets four quadrants instead of one.
Second, letters show up. x isn't a mystery, it's a number you don't know yet. Everything you already do with numbers, you can now do with a letter standing in for one.
6.RP.1
A ratio compares two amounts: 3 cups flour to 2 cups milk is 3:2. Say it properly — "for every".
6.RP.2
The amount for one. 150 miles in 3 hours → 50 miles per hour. Divide to get it.
6.RP.3
Percent is just a rate per 100. 30% means 30 out of every 100.
6.NS.1
Flip the second one and multiply. And know why: you're asking how many fit inside.
6.NS.2 · 6.NS.3
Add, subtract, multiply, divide multi-digit decimals fluently.
6.NS.4
Greatest common factor for simplifying, lowest common multiple for adding fractions.
6.NS.5 · 6.NS.6
Below zero, owing money, below sea level. −8 is less than −3.
6.NS.7
|−8| = 8. It's distance from zero, so it's never negative.
6.NS.8
Plot anywhere, and find distances between points that share an x or a y.
6.EE.1
4³ = 4 × 4 × 4 = 64. It's repeated multiplying, not 4 × 3.
6.EE.2
Write, read and evaluate them. 3x means 3 times x. Substitute and work it out.
6.EE.3 · 6.EE.4
3(x + 2) = 3x + 6. Same thing, written differently — that's the distributive property.
6.EE.7
x + 4 = 11, or 3x = 21. Undo what was done to x — and do it to both sides.
6.EE.8
x > 5 has infinitely many answers. Show them on a number line.
6.EE.9
d = 50t. Change one, the other changes. Table it, graph it.
6.G.1
Triangles, parallelograms, trapeziums, weird polygons — chop them into shapes you know.
6.G.2
length × width × height — and it still works with fractional edges.
6.G.3 · 6.G.4
Unfold a 3D shape flat, add up every face. That's surface area.
6.SP.1 · 6.SP.2
"How tall am I?" isn't statistical. "How tall is everyone in my class?" is — it has spread.
6.SP.3 · 6.SP.5
Mean, median, range, and mean absolute deviation. Centre and how spread out it is.
6.SP.4
Dot plots, histograms and box plots — and knowing which one suits the data.
The ½ in the triangle is the one people drop. A triangle is exactly half of the rectangle around it — that's where it comes from, so it's not worth forgetting.
They're numbered anticlockwise starting top-right. Always x first, then y — (3, −5) means across 3, down 5. Reflecting over the x-axis flips the y sign; over the y-axis flips the x.
Being able to swap between these instantly is worth more than any single skill in sixth-grade maths. It turns hard percent questions into easy fraction ones.
This is why dividing by a fraction under 1 makes things bigger — which feels wrong until you see it as "how many fit inside".
Checking takes five seconds and catches nearly every mistake. Always check.
One extreme value drags the mean and leaves the median alone. When data has outliers, median tells the truth. This is the idea behind half of 6.SP.
6.R.5
Don't just say what you think — quote the line that proves it. This is the sixth-grade reading skill.
6.R.6
The central idea is what it's about. The theme is what it's saying about that.
6.R.8
Figure out meaning from context — including when words don't mean what they literally say.
6.R.11
Who's telling this, and what do they want you to think? Point of view changes everything.
6.R.13
Is the claim actually supported, or does it just sound confident? Spot unsupported reasoning.
6.W.1 · 6.W.4
Make a claim, back it with real evidence, and research it properly.
Junior high uses McGraw-Hill StudySync. Notice how much of this is evidence — sixth grade stops accepting "because I think so" as an answer.
6.1.1
Model the Sun–Earth–Moon system: why the Moon changes shape, why eclipses are rare, why seasons happen.
6.1.2
Orbits are a tug-of-war: gravity pulls in, inertia keeps going straight.
6.1.3
Use real data to compare sizes and distances. The gaps are much bigger than any diagram shows.
6.2.1
Everything is made of atoms in particular kinds, proportions and amounts.
6.2.2
Add heat, particles move more, things spread out — so density drops. That's why hot air rises.
6.2.3
Temperature is average particle motion. Heat is the energy moving between things.
6.2.4
Design something that maximises or minimises heat transfer — then test it.
6.3.1
Driven by the Sun's energy, gravity and density. Not just "it rains".
6.3.2
Weather happens where air masses meet — fronts, storms, all of it.
6.3.3
The Sun heats Earth unevenly → air and ocean circulate → regions get their own climate.
6.3.4
The natural one is why Earth is warm enough to live on. Explain it with evidence.
6.4.1 · 6.4.3
Matter cycles round and round; energy flows one way, from the Sun up through the food web.
6.4.4 · 6.4.5
Change one thing and populations shift. Compare solutions for protecting biodiversity.
Sixth-grade science at Early Light is SEEd plus TCI for ancient history. Almost every standard here says develop a model or construct an explanation — being able to explain the mechanism is the whole game, not naming the parts.