Fourth Grade

We are a confident classroom of focused inquirers who ask questions daily to build our critical-thinking and communication skills.  We are risk-takers who understand that making mistakes leads to new learning.  We reflect on our efforts and work hard towards our personal goals and interests.  As balanced learners we enjoy working inside or outdoors while having fun with, and caring for others - both locally and globally. 

In partnership with the Hood Museum, we are exploring art from around the world, learn about artists’ inspiration and creative practices, and create our own art.  Our partnership with the Montshire Museum informs our hands-on inquiry-based approach to grade level science.   Lastly, our partnership with the Northern Stage rounds out students interests and passion for literature through hands-on production in the theatre arts. 

 

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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