5th and 6th Grade Elective Course Offerings

Yearlong Courses

  • AVID (6th grade ONLY) – Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) is a class that prepares students for college. This class focuses on writing, inquiry, collaboration and reading.Students also learn strategies in organization, note taking, and goal setting to enhance skills and access curriculum in preparation for college. Students participate in a group tutoring process, go on college visit field trips, test prep, team building, service learning and research.
  • Spanish –Students will begin to communicate in Spanish. An assortment of useful vocabulary and idiomatic expressions, combined with the telling of stories, provide students with the opportunity to become comfortable with the basic elements of the Spanish language.
  • Beginner Band/Strings – 5/6 grade students who want to learn a new band or string instrument.
  • Varsity Strings - 5/6 grade students who have played at least one year on their string instrument.
  • Varsity Band – 5/6 grade students who have played at least one year on their band instrument.
  • Treble Choir - Non-auditioned choir for 5/6 grade students who simply love to sing. We perform unison and 2-part music at 3 required home concerts each year.
  • Madrigals - Auditioned choir for 5/6 grade students who love to sing and want to work hard at becoming impressive choral musicians. We sing challenging 3 part music from a variety of time periods. High expectations for student behavior, participation in class, and musical performance.
  • Beginning Guitar -The best deal in the metro for starting the journey of learning guitar! Students are able to bring their own guitars or rent school-owned instruments from the music department. Focusing on fundamental music literacy, students learn how to read and interpret music notation, including melodies, harmonies, a variety of chords, playing styles, and rhythms.
  • Guitar Orchestra - This is the premier guitar ensemble at Field School. We perform challenging 3 and 4 part music from a variety of musical genres that require students to read/interpret music and practice at home in order to be successful. Only students who are enrolled in this course are eligible to audition to play a stringed instrument (guitar, bass, ukelele, etc) in the ROCK BANDs that meet every week during recess.

Keep Reading! Semester courses on the next page

Semester Courses

  • Physical Education - Students will engage in a variety of activities and sports to help develop the skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary to lead a healthy lifestyle, as well as function effectively in society.
  • Land and Water Forms Exploration - Students will learn the major land/water forms fromacross our planet while exploring the characteristics of each along with researching the histories and unique stories of some of the more famous land/water forms around our world. To end our study, students will be planning out their own country or continent incorporating all of the land/water forms discussed. After planning and designing, we will create three dimensional paper mache creations of students' individual country/continents.
  • The Art and Science of Games – What makes a good game? Why do we play? What strategies will help me to win? How do I behave if I win or lose? In this class we will analyze, play, and design games. Some will be teacher-designed, some will be familiar classics, and some will be your originals. Game design and analysis includes math skills, probability, art, engineering, and self-understanding.
  • Everything Money –Students will explore the everyday use of money. Some activities could include collecting a paycheck, balancing a checkbook, investing in stocks and bonds, putting money into savings accounts, shopping for the best deal, and anything regarding personal finance.
  • Media Communication – Extra, extra, read all about it! In this class students will explore media communication from the newspaper to the nightly news. Students will create a school newspaper and will also learn what it is like to be a nightly news reporter, either behind the desk or off looking for a story.
  • Greek Gods and the Ancient World- Students will develop profiles for the major Greek gods, we will study Greek mythology, heroes, alphabet, ancient Greece, and the 7 wonder of the ancient world.
  • Field Forensics - Students will use math, science, ELA, technology and art skills to learn about the field of forensic science. Students will culminate the unit by solving a “murder” in the science classroom.
  • Exploring the Graphic Novel - Do you want to explore, read, and discover more about how graphic novels come to life? Are you dying to create your own hero’s journey through the art of graphic novel? Have you always wanted to use technology to tell a story? “Exploring the Graphic Novel” will encompass all these things and more in order to make reading, writing, and drawing fun and electrifying!
  • Beauty is in the Eye of MATH - In this course students will learn how math is seen in the beauty of the natural world as well as art. The focus of this course will be project based learning where students will be briefly taught a new skill or use what they have learned from the core math class to then go deeper by creating art.
  • READ 180 Next Generation (grade 6 only) - Do you want to experience significant gains in your reading scores in only one year? In this class you may notice the technology first, but then you will realize this is a classroom designed for engagement – with technology, eBooks, audio books, eReads, and paperbacks for independent reading. The READ 180 Student Dashboard will support you as you build reading, writing and spelling skills and take ownership over your learning.
  • Math Behind the Science – This course encourages students to explore the relationship between skills used in math and science. The titles in the National Geographic Reading Expeditions series provide students with the opportunity to read engaging nonfiction while learning core concepts that support the NCE Standards. Some of the topics covered include Crunching Numbers, Decoding Data, Puzzling Out Patterns, Sizing Up Shapes, and What’s the Chance?