Age 11
At the age of eleven, an average eleven-year old is heading towards adolescence. Your child will show more self-assertion and curiosity and be socially expansive and aware. He may be physically exuberant, restless, wiggly, and talk a lot. Emotions come to picture more and your child may be moody and get easily frustrated. Your child will relate feelings and exhibit "off-color" humor and silliness. He may be competitive, wants to excel, and may put down "out group". You may get teased and tussled by your child.

• Copes with changes.
• Transitions to adolescence.
• Works on his interpersonal skills.
• Handles peer groups/pressure.
• Develops personal interests and abilities.
• Takes on greater responsibility for his behavior and decisions.

Signs of Trouble

For many sixth graders, the transition to middle school can be difficult because they have to adjust to a new and much larger school, new friends, and several teachers. Frequently, their report card grades go down as they are now being compared to new groups of students from other elementary schools.

Your child will have trouble if he is not able to: Determine when they need help and how to get it, handle different test formats (essay, short answer, multiple choice, true-false), study efficiently, resist drug and alcohol experimentation, demonstrate a genuine interest in school and learning.

Skills Your Child Should Learn this Year

Sixth grade is either the end of elementary school or the beginning of middle school. In either case, emphasis will be placed on increasing the students' proficiency in the basic skills. This will involve considerable review of previously taught material. Sixth graders will usually have more than one teacher because teachers are becoming subject specialists at this level.

Your child will learn to:

• Use all stages of the writing process (organizing, drafting, revising, and editing);
• Write essays, reports, letters, stories, and poems;
• Use Latin and Greek derivatives to increase their vocabularies;
• Identify and explain the essential ideas of their content area textbooks;
• Understand our legacy from ancient and early civilizations;
• Identify major chronological events in history as well as find the areas studied in history on maps and globes;
• Understand and perform all operations for rational numbers;
• Write, simplify, and manipulate expressions and equations in all areas of problem solving, including ratios, proportions, geometry, statistics, and probability;
• Set up and conduct simple scientific experiments;
• Understand the concepts of gravity, motion, energy, chemical compounds, the ecosystem, the classification of matter, fossils, heredity, and weather.

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