Family Digest · Quarter 4 · Week 35
Mongols, Plague & the End of the Medieval World
How globalization in 1300 changed everything.
6.SP.B.5
6.RP.A.3
RI.6.3
W.6.1
MS-LS4-6
C3 D2.His.16.6-8
ELA this week
- Monday: Read on Genghis Khan; how individuals shape events (RI.6.3).
- Tuesday: Vocabulary: khan, plague, pandemic, exchange.
- Wednesday: Read a primary-source plague account; perspective (RI.6.6).
- Thursday: Argument planning: 'Did the Black Death end the medieval world?' (W.6.1).
- Friday: Argument essay draft & revise.
Words to know
khan
plague
pandemic
exchange
Standards
RI.6.3
RI.6.6
W.6.1
Math this week
- Monday: Compare empire areas with bar chart; Mongol vs. Roman vs. British.
- Tuesday: Travel-time problems on Silk Road under Pax Mongolica.
- Wednesday: Percent population loss: data sets across European cities.
- Thursday: Wage data before vs. after plague — percent change.
- Friday: Mixed practice: percent change, data summary.
Science this week
- Monday: Human activities & natural selection (MS-LS4-6).
- Tuesday: Investigation: model how trade routes spread organisms.
- Wednesday: Disease as selection pressure on human populations.
- Thursday: Selective breeding case study (post-plague livestock).
- Friday: Mini-quiz on selection; portfolio entry.
Standards
MS-LS4-6
Social Studies this week
- Monday: Steppe society; the largest contiguous empire in history.
- Tuesday: Safe travel across the Silk Road; Marco Polo & Ibn Battuta.
- Wednesday: Plague along the trade routes; ⅓ of Europe's population dies.
- Thursday: Labor shortages; end of feudalism; rise of towns.
- Friday: 1453: Ottomans take Constantinople; Renaissance is dawning.
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 Genghis Khan".
- 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: khan, plague, pandemic, exchange".
- 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 a primary-source plague account".
- 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 "Argument planning: 'Did the Black Death end the medieval world?' (W".
- 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 "Argument essay draft & revise".
- 6.Ask your child to teach you tonight's idea in 60 seconds: "Show me one example of compare empire areas with bar chart." 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.