Fourth Grade Notes:
In fourth grade, students are able to join the St. Timothy School Choir and become a server at Mass. The main focus in Religion class is the Ten Commandments. This is the beginning of the intermediate grades and is a very exciting time!
RELIGION:
Fourth graders learn about the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes.
READING:
Some things we focus on in fourth grade are comprehension, antonyms, synonyms, and main idea. Students will be expected to read a different genre of book each month allowing them to learn about historical fiction, informational text, mystery, fantasy, biography, folktale, poetry, science fiction, and real life fiction. They will then do a different activity each month to share what they read. We are going to be starting Daily 5, which allows the kids to work at stations. The stations include: Read to Self, Read to a Partner, teacher time, Work on Writing, Word Work.
ENGLISH:
Besides learning grammar, students also work on study skills, research papers, and different types of writing.
MATH:
We have a new math curriculum this year, using the McGraw-Hill My Math. This series prepares students for higher level thinking skills, as they have to not only know how to compute answers, but they have to know how to explain what they did to get an answer. Multiplication and division of large numbers is a large part of the fourth grade math curriculum. Also, working on fractions and decimals is also very important.
SPELLING:
Students’ spelling lists now have 20 words. Proofreading and dictionary skills are also stressed. Spelling words will be practiced during Daily 5.
SOCIAL:
In fourth grade, students learn about the regions of the United States. They learn the location of all 50 states, as well as the land, history, and economy of each of the four regions. The end of the year holds the big state and capital test.
SCIENCE:
Our Science curriculum is Pearson Science. The photos in the textbook are taken by people from the Discovery Channel and therefore are excellent. Students learn various things from the areas of life science, earth science, physical science, and space/technology science.
ART:
Each month we will look at the work of a famous artist, study that artist, and then create our own works of art that contain some of the same qualities of the artist we are studying.
MUSIC:
In Fourth Grade Music we continue developing skills that were begun in previous grades, such as mallet technique on the glockenspiels, rhythmic abilities including syncopated rhythms, and continued singing with solfege. An especially fun element of fourth grade music is learning about the woodwind family and learning how to play the recorder!
