Religion
In grade 4 students continue to build their relationship with God through learning and living God’s Ten Commandments. Students dive deep into learning how to love and honor God and one another. Students learn this through parables, scriptures, and song. Grade 4 students will continue to learn about the communion of saints and how we can answer God’s call to be saints. Liturgical seasons and traditions will be highlighted. Students will also participate in weekly liturgies and have various service opportunities throughout the year.
Math
In fourth grade math, we use Sadlier Math 2019. We start off the year by reviewing place value, addition, and subtraction, which we were taught from third grade. We will take those skills and apply them to multiplication concepts and multi digit multiplication. After multiplication, students dive into division, including factors, multiples, and fractions. Decimals will also be used in all operations. We will learn how to work with fractions, and students will also learn how to perform all operations. We end our book with measurements, lines, and polygons. While learning these skills, we utilize technology with videos and interactive computer games. In fourth grade, we also use IXL every night to ensure that skills being taught in class are still present while out of the classroom. We do individual and group activities to enhance skills being taught. In our classroom, we learn skills that will help to prepare ourselves for fifth grade and the skills we will learn the following year.
Science
In fourth grade science, we use the Nancy Larson program. This program gives us access to a variety of interactive videos, activities, and tools to learn about each topic. We will uncover and discuss different cells and their characteristics and functions. We also look into nature by exploring parts of a plant, different types of animals, and ecosystems. We then move away from nature and turn to energy and electricity. Our science program will provide students with their own booklets for them to work in and complete activities. These booklets will have charts for students to fill in as well as different activities. We focus on key words and make sure we define them and highlight them in our books.
Vocabulary
Sadlier Vocabulary Workshop program uses a variety of tools to implement new terms into student’s vocabulary. Each unit (18 total) begins with a passage that introduces the new terms and how they are used and what they sound like. Other activities include synonyms and antonyms, matching definitions, pronunciation, parts of speech and how they are used in sentences. Each unit also helps students build vocabulary beyond the unit words such as learning word parts (prefixes and suffixes and roots to decode unknown words) as well as learning different meanings of figurative language such as idioms, proverbs, similes, and metaphors.
Grammar
In Voyages in English, students learn a multitude of different ways of understanding grammar and writing. This includes analyzing, arguing, and applying methods of effective communication. Students learn a total of seven chapters with each chapter divided into eleven lessons. These lessons include sentences, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs and conjunctions, and punctuation and capitalization. Bonus chapters also include multiple writing techniques such as: personal narratives, How-to articles, formal letters, descriptions, creative writing-fables, persuasive writing, expository writing, and research reports.
Reading
The HMH Into Reading curriculum builds students’ understanding of academic vocabulary and real-world topics by using critical/strategic thinking and reading skills. Each module teaches students how to recognize and use citing text evidence, genre characteristics as well as increasing knowledge in various content areas to build/make meaning of the readings. Each Module is organized into central ideas and questions with five readings in each module. Central ideas for each module in fourth grade are: What makes us who we are? Come to your senses, Rise to the Occasion, Heroic Feats, and Art Everywhere. Each story also ends with collaborative discussion questions as well as short writing exercises. Students complete summative essays at the end of each module by using the information and knowledge that they learned and apply those skills into writing assignments.
Social Studies
Each Chapter begins with the Big Questions where students are introduced to the topic, grounded in the instruction, and encouraged to draw upon and apply previous knowledge. A Jumpstart activity is designed to activate the topic at the opener in fun and engaging ways. Finally, the Sing/Rap about it feature introduces students to chapter vocabulary in the form of a song or rap. The Quest activity is an inquiry project that takes place over the course of the entire chapter. Students are presented with a real-world problem & students apply their knowledge and demonstrate their understanding in a final project (essay, discussion, presentation, physical/digital product. Reading checks are also provided to check for understanding of what was previously read, content vocabulary as well as increasing word skills, writing skills, Map and graph skills, critical thinking skills and literacy skills lessons in which students apply and demonstrate their learning. Specific areas learned are Geography of the United States, Americans and their history, Government in the United States, The Nation’s economy, Regions in the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, and West.