Fourth Grade

 

In fourth grade, we focus on foundational skills through a growth mind-set perspective. Students learn to be collaborative, use clear communication, and support one another to learn and be their best self in a safe and caring learning environment. Students are encouraged to take risks, be independent, and develop a lifelong love for learning. We embrace learning through hands on activities and experiences such as field trips, gardening, and days spent in our forest classroom. Students in Ms. Rachael’s fourth grade are valued and supported. 

Learning in 4th Grade

In fourth grade literacy we focus on developing a lifelong love for reading and writing. Students begin to really develop their identity as readers through discovering which genres they enjoy and a routine for daily reading. We build on the basic reading skills they have developed by learning new vocabulary, reading a variety of texts, and learning how to ask questions about their reading. Students participate in daily independent reading, whole class read a louds, book talks, book clubs, poetry slams, word games and so much more. 

In Grade 4, instructional time is focused on three critical areas:

  1. developing understanding and fluency with multi-digit multiplication, and developing understanding of dividing to find quotients involving multi-digit dividends;
  2. developing an understanding of fraction equivalence, addition and subtraction of fractions with like denominators, and multiplication of fractions by whole numbers;
  3. understanding that geometric figures can be analyzed and classified based on their properties, such as having parallel sides, perpendicular sides, particular angle measures, and symmetry. 
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) explored for the grade level include the usage of batteries and motors to observe and provide evidence that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents.  A strong emphasis on hands-on engineering involves the usage of a guided process which includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.  Students generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on the criteria and constraints. 

Through an integrated curriculum focused on current events, we explore the world’s “causes and effects” to develop and apply our critical thinking skills towards citizenship.  We post questions in our daily group chat as we learn and discover that history and democracy is a living thing. We manage hand-written history logbooks that include a daily phrase and trivia question so we can take our knowledge home and quiz our family members.

Locally, we are also focused on this part of the Upper Valley as we uncover how Vermont/New Hampshire came to be - from geologic times up to the modern interactions between new colonial settlers and the indigenous people of this region.

If you traveled back in time to this same place, who would you encounter and what would your day be like? What kind of voice would you have?  How have those readily found human and geographic resources (rivers, flora and fauna) shaped the history, inventions and the history (and news) of the people of this region.

 


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