Family Digest · Quarter 3 · Week 25
The Spread of Buddhism
From India along the Silk Road to East Asia.
6.RP.A.3
6.SP.B.5
RL.6.2
W.6.2
MS-LS4-1
C3 D2.His.14.6-8
ELA this week
- Monday: Read a Jataka tale; identify theme (RL.6.2).
- Tuesday: Vocabulary: dharma, karma, sangha, nirvana.
- Wednesday: Read an Ashoka edict (primary source); central idea (RI.6.2).
- Thursday: Plan informative essay: 'Why did Buddhism spread?' (W.6.2).
- Friday: Draft & revise informative essay.
Words to know
dharma
karma
sangha
nirvana
Standards
RL.6.2
RI.6.2
W.6.2
Math this week
- Monday: Percent comparisons of religious adherence over time.
- Tuesday: Data displays with religious-population data sets.
- Wednesday: Mean and median of grouped data.
- Thursday: Compare Buddhist & Hindu population data using box plots.
- Friday: Mixed practice: data and percent.
Science this week
- Monday: Fossils as evidence of life over time (MS-LS4-1).
- Tuesday: Investigation: trace fossil age with rock-layer model.
- Wednesday: Compare ancient and modern organisms in fossil record.
- Thursday: Index fossils — what they tell us about time periods.
- Friday: Quick-quiz on fossils; lab journal entry.
Standards
MS-LS4-1
Social Studies this week
- Monday: Siddhartha Gautama; the Four Sights and the Awakening.
- Tuesday: The Eightfold Path; karma, dharma, samsara.
- Wednesday: Ashoka the Great; rock edicts; Buddhism becomes a missionary faith.
- Thursday: Two schools spread; bodhisattvas in East Asia, Pali canon in SE Asia.
- Friday: Along the Silk Road; the Mogao caves at Dunhuang.
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 a Jataka tale".
- 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: dharma, karma, sangha, nirvana".
- 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 "Read an Ashoka edict (primary source)".
- 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 "Plan informative essay: 'Why did Buddhism spread?'".
- 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 "Draft & revise informative essay".
- 6.Ask your child to teach you tonight's idea in 60 seconds: "Show me one example of percent comparisons of religious adherence over time." 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.