Grade 6 · Hands-On Activities
Math Architect Activities
Ten build-and-design challenges — one for each unit of the year. In every activity students construct something (mix a formula, build a boardwalk, wire a solar array, plan a city grid, design an aquarium) to solve the math, then finish with an auto-graded check they can save as a PDF or DOC.
All Ten Units
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🚰 Unit 1 — Stadium Hydration Station
Engineer a drink-mixing station by writing ratios, building ratio tables, finding unit rates, and comparing pump flow rates.
6.NS.A.1🌿 Unit 2 — Wetland Trail Boardwalk
Design a raised boardwalk by dividing fractions and mixed numbers to count planks, space posts, and ration sealant.
6.RP.A.1–3🚌 Unit 3 — GreenLine Transit Network
Plan a transit system using ratio tables, a proportional graph, unit-cost comparisons, and a paint-mix scaler.
6.RP.A.3🌳 Unit 4 — Greenway Park Commission
Design an accessible park — check ramp grade, size a pump, convert units, and manage a budget with unit rates and percents.
6.G.A.1🏛️ Unit 5 — Riverside Pavilion Park
Build a park from scale blueprints by computing triangle, composite, and trapezoid areas while staying on budget.
6.EE.A.1–3☀️ Unit 6 — Solar Array Engineer
Design a rooftop solar array by evaluating powers, writing expressions, and applying the distributive property.
6.EE.B.5–8🚀 Unit 7 — Mars Rover Mission Control
Program the Halcyon rover using one-step equations for exact values and inequalities to define safe operating limits.
6.SP.A.1–3 & B.4–5🌫️ Unit 8 — City Air Quality Lab
Work as a data scientist: use mean, median, MAD, and data displays to compare two neighborhoods and recommend action.
6.NS.C.5–8🏙️ Unit 9 — City Grid Engineer
Lay out a city using coordinates, integers, absolute value, grid distances, and reflections across the axes.
6.G.A.2 & A.4🐠 Unit 10 — Coral Cove Aquarium
Design a glass aquarium by computing prism volumes (with fractional edges) and unfolding nets to find surface area.
About Architect Activities
What Is an Architect Activity?
An Architect activity is a hands-on, single-page challenge where students build or design directly on the screen — dragging, clicking, and entering values — instead of only answering questions. Each one targets a single unit's standard with 5–8 interactive problems in plain Grade-6-ESOL language.
Every activity includes a Learning Target, collapsible Teacher Notes (pacing, grouping, differentiation, and ESOL supports), a rubric, a teacher answer key, and a reflection. Students enter their name and use the built-in Save as PDF or Save as DOC button to turn in finished, auto-graded work. Activities are keyboard-accessible, light/dark aware, and print cleanly.