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6th grade · Social Studies · Unit 11 of 12

Renaissance & Reformation

New art, ideas and printing

What your child practices

The rebirth of art and learning in Italy, how the printing press spread ideas, the Reformation, and how questioning led to new science.

Arizona Academic Standards learning standard: 6.H3.2; 6.SP1.2 · the Renaissance and Reformation and the changes they brought

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. The Renaissance was a rebirth of art and learning after the Middle Ages.
  2. Gutenberg's printing press (about 1450) made books cheaper and spread ideas fast.
  3. In 1517, Martin Luther criticized Church practices, starting the Reformation. Shakespeare wrote plays and poems around 1600.

Example: Which came first: the Black Death reaches Europe or Gutenberg's printing press? The Black Death came in 1347. The printing press came about 1450. Answer: the Black Death reaches Europe

Renaissance & Reformation in Arizona

In the Arizona Academic Standards, this is unit 11 of 12 in 6th grade Social Studies, after The Islamic World and before Time & Evidence.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Arizona Department of Education

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Who is credited with writing in 1543 that the Earth moves around the Sun?

    • Nicolaus Copernicus
    • Marco Polo
    • Gutenberg
    • Aristotle

  2. Question 2

    Renaissance artists used linear perspective to…

    • make paintings smaller
    • make flat paintings look three-dimensional, with depth
    • paint only portraits
    • avoid using color

  3. Question 3

    Andreas Vesalius, in 1543, changed medicine by…

    • inventing the thermometer
    • painting the Sistine Chapel
    • discovering the Americas
    • publishing detailed drawings of the human body based on careful study

  4. Question 4

    Galileo used a telescope to observe moons around Jupiter. Why was this important?

    • It showed that not everything orbits the Earth.
    • It started the Crusades.
    • It ended the Black Death.
    • It proved the Earth is flat.

  5. Question 5

    How did the printing press help the Reformation spread?

    • Books were banned.
    • Presses were rare.
    • Pamphlets and Bibles could be printed in large numbers.
    • Nobody could read.

  6. Question 6

    William Shakespeare, a famous English writer in the late 1500s and early 1600s, wrote…

    • maps
    • encyclopedias
    • plays and poems
    • laws

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