Posts in 4th Grade
4th grade - foreign language

Foreign Language

The Greene School Foreign Language program is to expose students to ample listening and reading opportunities with classes four times a week. Fourth grade Spanish curriculum integrates speaking, reading, writing, and listening, to help students achieve a level of proficiency. It is a gentle immersion to the language and culture as a whole. Students are encouraged to answer in Spanish with one word or sentences according to student’s level with approximately 90% of the class communication in Spanish.

Students acquire language proficiency with visual and interactive support using grade level vocabulary and techniques such as Total Physical Response (TPR) and Natural Approach. The goal of both of these strategies is to allow students to learn a second language in the same way they learned their first language – through their senses, encouraging long-term retention of the language. The approach to learning the language is naturally fundamental and repetitive as vocabulary is recycled to ensure mastery of the vocabulary words.

Fourth grade students use the ¡Qué chévere! and Realidades curriculum textbook which integrate development of language proficiency into cultural understanding using project-based learning activities, multimedia resources, songs, games, and stories .

  • Students will learn: there is\there are, to be (ser), to be (estar), to go, to have, to want, to like.

  • Students will learn five more high frequency verbs: to say, to do, to give, to see, can.

  • Students will learn to answer question words (what, when, how, how many, who, why, how many).

  • Students will learn additional vocabulary: to listen, to understand, to practice, to answer, to remember, to think, to speak, to stand-up, to sit-down, to look, be able to, to say, to know, to do, to see, to give, to start, to finish, to close, to open, to write, to draw, to play, to walk, to run, to jump, to drink, to dance, to eat.

  • Students will understand (listen and read) these verbs and start conjugating them with all pronouns (I, you, he, she, we, they).

  • Students will learn vocabulary focusing on PQA and retelling stories.

  • Students will learn through topics: greetings, likes and dislikes, school, family, weather, sports, animals, physical descriptions, personality traits, and chores.

Content is delivered using the following strategies:

  • Collaborative Storytelling

  • MovieTalk

  • Embedded Reading

  • PictureTalk

  • TPR (Total Physical Response)

  • Personalized Questions and Answers

  • Read and Discuss

Technology is used to incorporate independent listening, speaking and reading. Technology is crucial in our Spanish class to differentiate instruction and to play games. Music, games, stories, and videos engage students on their learning journey.

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4th GradeSamantha PennForeign Language
4th grade - science

Science

The main focus of our fourth grade science curriculum is in providing opportunities for students to engage in and understand science practices, explore issues related to engineering practices, as well as the use of natural resources. Students apply what they know as they complete hands-on activities, which helps strengthen current understanding and promotes new knowledge of the world around us. While actively participating in scientific investigations, students observe objects and events, think about how they relate to what is already known, test their ideas in logical ways, analyze outcomes, and generate explanations that describe what, why, and how a certain result occurred.

  • Students will learn skills that allow for successful inquiry and explanation.

  • Students will review the steps of the scientific method.

  • Students will design and carry out experiments that provide opportunities to make clear observations, infer and make connections with what is happening, as well as classify, measure, analyze and evaluate data.

  • Students will learn the importance of organizing information through the use of science notebooks where students document what they experience, any data they collect, and their thinking during the activity.

Our science instruction is broken down into two main modules, Energy and Environments.

During our Energy module, students explore electricity, learn about circuits, discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each, and understand which materials conduct electricity. Students demonstrate their knowledge of these concepts through assessment and project-based learning opportunities, such as designing and constructing their own flashlight. A second topic introduced during this unit is magnetism and electromagnets. Through testing compasses, exploring the strength of magnetic attraction, creating visual magnetic fields, and building electromagnets and generators, students discover the phenomenon of magnets and interactions they have with materials and each other. Our final focus of this unit is energy transfer. Students observe and analyze data to determine how one form of energy can be transferred to another and document evidence seen that supports their ideas. Through well designed investigations, students discover what happens to energy when two objects collide, how variables affect one another, and use controlled experiments involving the transfer of potential energy into kinetic energy to test how mass and release position affect energy transfer.

The second module introduced in fourth grade is Environments. This module focuses on the way animals and plants interact with their environment and with each other. The driving question for the module deals with structure and function. Students design investigations to study environments, range of tolerance, and optimum conditions for growth and survival of specific organisms. Students conduct controlled experiments by incrementally changing specific environmental conditions and use data collected to develop and use models to understand the impact of changes to the environment. Students explore how animals use their sense of hearing and develop models for detecting and interpreting sound. They graph and interpret data from multiple experiments and develop explanations from evidence. Students gain experiences that will contribute to the understanding of patterns, cause and effect, system models, energy and matter, structure and function, and stability and change.

While participating in active investigations, online activities, outdoor experiences, and formative and benchmark assessments, students practice teamwork and interdependence, problem-solving skills, critical thinking, and applied understanding of past concepts to generate new hypotheses and conclusions. Our learning environment allows students to work and think like scientists and engineers.

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4th GradeSamantha PennScience
4th grade - social science

Social Science

Fourth grade social studies instruction focuses mainly on Florida. Through the use of Studies Weekly and outside resources, students discover Florida’s rich history, geography, economics, and civics. The class incorporates printed material with web-based features to engage students in course content. Integrated into our social studies curriculum are important skills such as relevant writing prompts, word study, reading comprehension, critical thinking skills, and the opportunity to work both independently as well as in small groups.

Topics studied include:

  • Current events

  • Map skills review

  • Florida state symbols

  • Florida’s geography and how the climate affects the produce we grow and the plant and animal species that live in the state

  • Native American tribes that once inhabited this land – how they communicated, survived, and what their homes and clothing looked like

  • The first European explorers who discovered Florida – the objectives and goals of these men and how the discovery of Florida changed their lives

  • The colonization of Florida

  • The history of St. Augustine

  • Juan Ponce de Leon, Jean Ribault, and Pedro Menendez de Aviles and their contributions to the settlement as well as the conflict between the French and the Spanish

The study of Florida’s history is the forefront of fourth grade curriculum, however other topics are integrated into our lessons as well, including Black History Month and the Civil Rights Movement, Women’s History Month, Government Functions, Being a Citizen, and the American Revolution.

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4th GradeSamantha PennSocial Science
4th Grade - mathematics

Mathematics

The primary goal of our mathematics curriculum is to engage our students in activities that promote higher-level thinking, application of skills through problem-based learning activities, and rich mathematical discussions where they are thinking and speaking like a mathematician!

In order to maintain rigor, our curriculum provides flexible grouping with flexible pacing. Each topic is pre-tested to identify the various levels. Students are pre-tested at the beginning of each topic to carefully identify student levels. Students passing material prior to formal instruction are accelerated using different grade-accelerated materials that included advanced content with a problem-solving focus.

Our mathematics instruction includes Operations, Algebra, Numbers, and Computation.

  • Students will learn place value through hundred millions

  • Students will learn decimal place values through hundred thousandths.

  • Students will learn to compare, estimate, and break apart numbers to solve inequalities.

  • Students will learn addition and subtraction of whole numbers and decimals and will apply this to multi-step problems.

  • Students will learn multiplication of multi-digit numbers by utilizing a variety of methods: area model of multiplication, distributive property, lattice method, and the traditional algorithm.

  • Students will learn long division.

  • Students will learn to use models and mathematical procedures to understand, recognize, and generate equivalent fractions.

  • Students will learn addition and subtraction of fractions, improper fractions, and mixed numbers.

  • Students will learn to identify the least common factor and greatest common denominator.

Students participate in various problem-based learning projects involving application of all operations, along with planning, organization, and real-life scenarios that develop and assess their math skills:

  • The Million Dollar Project

  • Movie Entrepreneur Project.

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4th GradeSamantha PennMathematics
4th Grade - Language Arts

Language Arts

Our language arts curriculum utilizes a balanced approach to literacy including reading, writing, and vocabulary study. The emphasis of our ELA curriculum is for our thriving learners to engage deeply in the reading, speaking, and writing process. Through a broad range of instructional protocols we take our students through learning experiences which weave student engagement, discourse, and collaboration.

Students will continue to build important reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills in grade four. They will read more challenging literature, articles, and other sources of information and continue to grow their vocabulary. They will also be expected to clearly explain in detail what they have read during collaborative discussions by referring to details or information from the text. They will learn how to take notes and organize information from books, articles, and online sources to learn more about a topic. Students will learn to organize their ideas and develop topics with reasons, facts, details, and other information. They will write research and opinion papers over extended periods of time.

Reading

Our approach to reading instruction enables children to build and hone skills they need to succeed in becoming independent readers. Explicit reading strategies are taught in a mini-lesson format, followed by both small group and individual instruction. We assess each child individually in order to determine his or her instructional reading level at various times throughout the year to provide continued differentiated instruction. Students interact with and explore a variety of genres through notable award-winning novels and teacher-selected informational paired text in a program called Reading Adventures.

  • Students learn to explore, identify, and reflect on themes, character development, problems/conflicts, and mood.

  • Students will learn to locate, evaluate, and interpret literary devices such as foreshadowing, flashbacks, imagery, characterization, repetition, connotations, epilogue, euphemisms, irony, and figurative language.

  • Students will build on prior knowledge and make rich connections to maximize their reading experience and enhance their comprehension.

  • Students work independently and in small groups to build stamina, discuss reading, and understand a variety of texts.

  • Students learn to interpret and analyze a range of written texts, both fiction and non-fiction.

  • Students learn to use explicit information to identify the main idea or primary purpose of a text or part of a text as well as explicit details from a passage to understand it fully.

  • Students learn how to use implicit information from a passage to make inferences about the moods and motivations of characters in order to understand their shifts and developments over the course of the book.

  • Students learn to make inferences about events, understanding their importance and meaning within the context of the book.

  • Students learn how to determine whether information consists of fact or opinion. Within fiction, they will learn whether or not a narrator is trustworthy.

  • Students recognize cause-and-effect relationships among elements in a text.

  • Students categorize and combine the layers of implicit information to make predictions, draw conclusions, and/or formulate hypotheses.

  • Students will employ comprehension strategies to interpret, analyze, and evaluate what they have read.

  • Students will be able to discuss texts well, demonstrating their understanding and growing each other’s ideas.

  • Students will engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, cooperative groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners to discuss topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and express their own ideas, positions, and responses.

  • Students will develop communication and public speaking skills in creation of group presentations using slides or IMovies.

  • Students will learn how to take notes and organize information from books, articles, and online sources to learn more about a topic.

Writing & Grammar

Our language arts instruction not only enhances the mechanics of writing, grammar, spelling, and syntax, but also allow students to express themselves in creative and personal ways. Through weekly growth mindset journaling, students respond to topics that encourage social and emotional growth, personal development, and innovative thinking. Our focus is to create strong thinking through writing. Formal writing is done through a multidisciplinary approach weaving in social studies, science, and reading. It not only helps students make connections but enhances the learning experience.

  • Students will organize their ideas and develop topics with reasons, facts, details, and other information.

  • Students will write research and opinion papers over extended periods of time.

  • Students will learn to properly use conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

  • Students will learn to properly use conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

  • Students will learn to clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.

  • Students will learn proper use of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.

Students will demonstrate skills through a variety of activities and products:

  • Board games

  • Pop-up books

  • Character journals

  • Scrapbooks

Students will participate in a variety of integrated writing activities utilizing multiple different writing formats:

  • Friendly letter

  • Poems

  • Role-play journals

  • App creations

  • Book reviews

  • R.A.F.T.

  • Formal essays such as informational, expository, and persuasive writing.

Monthly writing experiences allow our junior writers to publish and share their pieces with their peers.

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4th GradeSamantha PennLanguage Arts