Family Digest · Quarter 2 · Week 17
Alexander the Great & the Hellenistic World
From Macedonia to the Indus; cultural blending across three continents.
6.G.A.1
6.G.A.4
RI.6.3
W.6.2
MS-LS2-1
C3 D2.Geo.5.6-8
ELA this week
- Monday: Read on Philip & Alexander; how individuals shape events (RI.6.3).
- Tuesday: Vocabulary: empire, conquest, syncretism, Hellenistic.
- Wednesday: Plan informative essay: 'Why was Alexandria important?' (W.6.2).
- Thursday: Draft body paragraphs of the informative essay.
- Friday: Revise informative essay; conventions check.
Words to know
empire
conquest
syncretism
Hellenistic
Standards
RI.6.3
W.6.2
Math this week
- Monday: Surface area using nets — rectangular prisms (6.G.A.4).
- Tuesday: Surface area of triangular prisms via nets.
- Wednesday: Surface area of pyramids; net practice.
- Thursday: Mixed surface-area problems with composite shapes.
- Friday: Mixed practice: area & surface area.
Standards
6.G.A.4
Science this week
- Monday: Predator-prey relationships; model with hare/lynx data.
- Tuesday: Investigation: graph predator-prey cycles; identify oscillation.
- Wednesday: Symbiosis types: mutualism, commensalism, parasitism.
- Thursday: Build a food web from a Mediterranean ecosystem.
- Friday: Ecosystem mini-quiz; portfolio entry.
Words to know
mutualism
commensalism
parasitism
Social Studies this week
- Monday: How Macedonia rose; the long sarissa and the new phalanx.
- Tuesday: From Granicus to the Hydaspes; map Alexander's empire.
- Wednesday: The Library, the Pharos, Greek language as a lingua franca.
- Thursday: Greco-Buddhist art at Gandhara; mathematics from East to West.
- Friday: Why Alexander matters; what he did and didn't accomplish.
Ask at the dinner table
- 1.Ask: "Who is the main character or speaker in what you read today, and what do they want?" Then have your child read aloud one favorite sentence from "Read on Philip & Alexander".
- 2.Ask: "Who is the main character or speaker in what you read today, and what do they want?" Then have your child read aloud one favorite sentence from "Vocabulary: empire, conquest, syncretism, Hellenistic".
- 3.Ask: "Who is the main character or speaker in what you read today, and what do they want?" Then have your child read aloud one favorite sentence from "Plan informative essay: 'Why was Alexandria important?'".
- 4.Ask: "Who is the main character or speaker in what you read today, and what do they want?" Then have your child read aloud one favorite sentence from "Draft body paragraphs of the informative essay".
- 5.Ask: "Who is the main character or speaker in what you read today, and what do they want?" Then have your child read aloud one favorite sentence from "Revise informative essay".
- 6.Ask your child to teach you tonight's idea in 60 seconds: "Show me one example of surface area using nets — rectangular prisms (6." Teaching it back is the fastest way to lock it in.
How to help at home
Read together. Spend 15 minutes on any text — fiction, news, even recipes. Talk about new words.
Show your thinking. When you do math in real life (cooking, shopping, budgeting), narrate it out loud.
Ask "why" and "how." For science and social studies, open-ended questions matter more than right answers.
Celebrate effort. Six hours of school is a long day. Notice the work, not just the grade.