Fourth Grade Monthly Highlights

September 15 to October 15 - Hispanic Heritage Month

October 9 - Indigenous Peoples Day, No School for Students

October 31 - End of Marking Period 1, Halloween Party at School (More information to come!)

November 1 - No School for Students

Continue reading and practicing your basic math facts at home each day!

Grade 4 Math:

Module 1

Students have been extending their understanding of place value, rounding, and algorithms for addition and subtractions. Students will become fluent with standard algorithms in addition and subtraction to solve for a variable. The unit concludes with multi-step word problems in which students model their thinking using tape diagrams to deepen their comprehension and assess the reasonableness of their answers.

Module 2

In Module 2 we use length, mass, and capacity in the metric system to convert between units using place value knowledge. Students will explore the patterns in the place value system through metric unit conversions, and will use mixed unit conversions to prepare for fraction and decimal operations to come in later math modules.

Compacted Math 4/5

Module 3

Students began Module 3 Topic A by investigating the formulas for area and perimeter. Students will use place value understanding and visual representations to solve multiplication and division problems with multi-digit numbers. They will solve multiplicative comparison word problems, including the language of "times" and "as much as." Students create diagrams to represent these problems as well as write equations with symbols for the unknown quantities.

ELC Reading and Writing

During the month of October, students will wrap up the Junior Great Book Unit on strength by reflecting on how characters in the texts we read exhibited physical strength, mental strength, the strength of character, and the strength of community. Students will also reflect on how events in their own lives have helped them increase their strength in these capacities. Students will also explore non-fiction texts and will use Jacob's Ladder comprehension program to explore the topics of space exploration, growth mindsets, and the benefits of failure. Students will also finish reading their realistic fiction novel, Because of Winn Dixie by Kate DiCamillo.

In writing, students will continue to use the Lucy Calkins Unit of Study to raise the level of their personal narratives to the next level. Students will be revising the narratives written earlier in the year by using peer feedback to revise and will use editing checklists to ensure they have used conventions properly.

Benchmark Language Arts:

Students have read informational and fictional texts while thinking about the essential question, "How can government influence the way we live?" They have used previewing and annotation strategies to determine the main idea of an informational text and explain how it is supported by key details. Students use this work to summarize the text and contribute to class discussions. They will now answer questions about a text by referring to relevant information in the text. Students will use context clues to determine the meaning of specific words and vocabulary in a text.

Students will begin Unit 2 in October. In this unit, students will read and compare characters in fables, fairy tales, and fantasies and analyze their actions and reactions. When reading a fictional text, students will be able to determine the theme by using specific details. They will write routinely over extended time frames for a variety of discipline-specific tasks and purposes.

Social Studies:

Students will continue to will review indigenous cultures existing in West Africa and eastern North America before European exploration in the late 1400s. They will also identify explorers who were significant to early European presence in North America and describe early European settlement in the New World.

Science:

Students will make observations to provide evidence that energy can be transferred from place to place by mechanical, sound, radiant (light), heat, chemical, and electric currents. Energy is the ability to do work. The six types of energies that will be reviewed are listed and defined below.

Mechanical Energy: Energy due to an object's motion (kinetic) or position (potential) is known as mechanical energy.

Radiant (light) Energy: Radiant energy is electromagnetic energy. It includes energy from gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet rays, visible light, infrared rays, microwaves, and radio waves.

Chemical Energy: Energy that is available for release from chemical reactions is termed as chemical energy.

Heat Energy: The heat energy of an object determines how active its atoms are.

Electrical Energy: Energy caused by the movement of electrons is called electrical energy.

Sound Energy: Sound is the movement of energy through a substance – like air or water – and is caused by vibrations. Solids, liquids, and gases transmit sound as waves.