Students in these grades learn skills in reading, writing, speaking, listening, and math, and how to apply them to all subject areas. They find out about the world and practice things like working with others and solving problems. They play sports, learn about music, draw and paint, and discover what interests them most. Here’s what you can expect in core subjects at each grade. Ask your child’s teacher for more information throughout the school year.

• Learn through play

• Develop skills in reading and writing, like recognizing and writing letters, learning new words, and telling stories
  (Beginning in kindergarten, schools use the Wit & Wisdom curriculum)

• Build a foundation for math by recognizing numbers, counting, adding, subtracting, and identifying shapes

• Learn about being part of a family and a community

• Study weather, plants, and animals

• Learn habits for staying healthy

• Develop self-esteem and how to manage feelings, behavior, and independence

• Learn to share and work with other children

• Build reading comprehension skills, distinguish between fiction and nonfiction, and compare characters in stories

• Add and subtract up to 20 and solve word problems

• Investigate light, how plants and animals grow and live, and patterns in space

• Study geography and the environment

• Make comparisons between past and present

• Read stories, fables, and folktales from different cultures

• Ask “who, what, where, when, why, and how” questions about reading

• Add and subtract up to 1,000

• Measure and estimate lengths

• Explore changes to our planet and how plants and animals adapt to where they live

• Understand the difference between needing something and wanting something

• Retell important details from fables, folktales, and myths from different cultures

• Learn about point of view in writing

• Multiply and divide numbers up to 100, begin to understand fractions, and solve word problems

• Investigate insects

• Study how individuals and groups protect rights and maintain order in our world

• Learn about money

• Study Baltimore’s history, culture, and economy

• Explain differences between poetry, drama, and prose

• Figure out the meaning of words and phrases in writing

• Add, subtract, and multiply fractions, and solve word problems

• Investigate changes to our planet, waves, and energy

• Study Maryland’s history, geography, and economy

• Explain the structure of different kinds of writing

• Learn more about a narrator’s point of view

• Analyze how pictures contribute to a text

• Continue to learn about fractions and study decimals

• Study environmental and earth science

• Explain the differences between the British colonies and America

Students keep developing skills in middle school and apply them in more complex areas to build knowledge, critical thinking, and problem-solving. These are also important years for learning to organize work, manage time, set and meet goals, and work both independently and with others — and to discover interests and talents that affect decisions about high school, college, or career. 

• Write in different ways for different reasons, like expressing opinions or persuading

• Read a wide variety of literature, analyzing word choice, point of view, and structure

• Study the history and geography of Asia and Africa

• Learn ratios, rates, and statistics

• Explore light, particles, ecosystems, water cycles, and rocks

• Study writing techniques such as analogy, allusion, and irony

• Compare and contrast written, audio, and video texts

• Analyze primary and secondary sources in history, and explain the impact of geography on historical developments

• Work with equations, graphs, and two- and three-dimensional shapes

• Study matter, energy, weather, and biology

• Learn about managing money

• Develop skills in reading, writing, and thinking in different subject areas — for example, historical texts

• Study linear equations, two- and three-dimensional space, distance, and angles

• Investigate geological processes, motion, force, heredity, natural selection, and chemical reactions

• Study U.S. history from the American Revolution through Reconstruction