4th Grade

Summary of Module 7 Tricksters and Tall Tales: In this module, students will listen to, read, and view a variety of texts and media that present them with information about traditional tales. There is a genre focus on traditional stories that provides students with  opportunities to identify central ideas, figurative language, and media techniques in order to better understand unfamiliar texts. Students will also encounter an informational text to build knowledge across genres.

As students build their vocabulary and synthesize topic knowledge, they will learn that traditional stories can teach many lessons about life and the world around us.

Reading: Over the course of Module 7 we will read texts that will help us answer the following

Essential Question: What lessons can we learn from characters in traditional tales? We will develop and work on the following reading skills and strategies: central ideas, figurative language, retelling, theme, describing characters, text and graphic features, literary elements and media techniques in order to better understand unfamiliar texts. 

     

Home Connections

Discuss the Topic: Set aside time daily for your child to share with you what he or she is learning. Use these ideas to help build your child’s knowledge about the topic: 

• Talk about the ideas your child has added to the Knowledge Map each week.
• Ask about the texts your child is reading and what he or she has learned from them. 
• Share with your child your own questions about the topic, and work together to find the answers.

Explore the Genre:The genre focus in this module is traditional stories. Discuss with your child the characteristics of traditional stories, such as they often teach a lesson and include characters that are animals or have exaggerated abilities.

 

Build Vocabulary: Use these ideas to help your child build a rich vocabulary. The Big Idea reinforces the topic words trickster, shrewd, exaggeration, and legendary in everyday conversations with your child. 

Using prompts like these: 

• Name some characters that are tricksters. 
• Describe something that is legendary.

What Does It Mean? Have your child keep a growing list of the Critical Vocabulary words. Quiz each other on their meanings.

Word Hunt Look for words with the suffixes –ion, –ity, –ty and prefixes mis–, pre–, dis– in books and online texts.

Reinforce Reading Skills

Your child’s IXL account is linked with this Module and all skills that are taught weekly from this module. Please have your child use the IXL platform daily to reinforce these skills and other teacher recommended skills. 

The use of iReady at home is also another  good app to use to reinforce reading skills at home. You can access it through Teachhub and go through Clever.

Summary of Module 9 Global Guardians:  In this module, students will listen to, read, and view a variety of texts and media that present them with information about conservation. There is a genre focus on persuasive texts that provide students with opportunities to identify ideas and support, text and graphic features, and author’s craft in order to better understand unfamiliar texts. Students will also encounter a graphic novel, realistic fiction, and a biography to build knowledge across genres. As students build their vocabulary and synthesize topic knowledge, they will learn that it is up to all of us to work together to preserve our planet and its natural resources.

Reading: Over the course of Module 9 we will read texts that will help us answer the following

Essential Question: What can people do to care for our planet? We will develop and work on the following reading skills and strategies: author’s ideas and support,  making inferences, text and graphic features, theme, figurative language, retelling, summarizing, text structure, author‘s craft, and literary elements

    

Home Connections

Discuss the Topic: Set aside time daily for your child to share with you what he or she is learning. Use these ideas to help build your child’s knowledge about the topic: 

• Talk about the ideas your child has added to the Knowledge Map each week. 
• Ask about the texts your child is reading and what he or she has learned.

Explore the Genre:The genre focus in this module is persuasive text. Discuss with your child how to analyze the reasons given in a persuasive text to decide if they are convincing. Ask your child to read to you each day and make time to read together.

Look for texts that:  • spark your child’s curiosity • tie to the module topic • use descriptive language

• have engaging photographs or illustrations

Build Vocabulary: Use these ideas to help your child build a rich vocabulary. The Big Idea reinforces the topic words ecology, recycle, conservation, and sanctuary in everyday conversations with your child. 

Using prompts like these: 

• What items can we recycle?. 
• How could we help the conservation movement?
• What Does It Mean?
• Have your child keep a growing list of the Critical Vocabulary words.

What Does It Mean? Have your child keep a growing list of the Critical Vocabulary words. Quiz each other on their meanings.

Word Hunt Look for words with the suffixes –able, –ible, –ful, -ous, -less, -en, ic in books, magazines, and online texts.

Reinforce Reading Skills

Your child’s IXL account is linked with this Module and all skills that are taught weekly from this module. Please have your child use the IXL platform daily to reinforce these skills and other teacher recommended skills. 

The use of iReady at home is also another  good app to use to reinforce reading skills at home. You can access it through Teachhub and go through Clever.

Writing:  

Writing:  MODULE 6- Letter Writing

Focus Statement: Earth’s natural wonders can teach us a great deal.

In this writing unit students will be writing a letter to their parents about which natural wonder of the world they should go visit on their next trip and why. They will use the information gathered from Module 6’s reading and persuade their parents why they should choose to visit that natural wonder.  The Focus Statement for this unit is: Earth’s natural wonders can teach us a great deal.  As students get prepared to write, they will be introduced to formal language when writing a letter, they will think about who they are writing to and what information they will include in their letters and reasons why they should visit this place.  To help gear students into thinking more about their topic, we will introduce and read students a Focal Text titled Coral Reefs by Jason Chin. Students will go through the writing process as they prepare to write, review the features of a letter

MODULE 7-Narrative - Imaginative Story Writing

Focus Statement: Imaginative stories can make us laugh and teach us a lesson.

In this writing unit students will be writing an imaginative story about an interesting animal how it came to be. Students will use their knowledge of Narrative story writing to create their imaginative stories. The Focus Statement for this unit is: Imaginative stories can make us laugh and teach us a lesson. As students get prepared to write and learn the features of a narrative story, they will think about an animal they find interesting and write about how that animal came to be.  To help gear students into thinking more about this animal, we will  be introduced to and read a Focal Text titled: The Luck of the Loch Ness Monster: A Tale of Picky Eating written by Alice Weaver Flaherty.  Students will go through the writing process as they prepare to write, students will  review the features of a narrative story. 

Math Curriculum:   

Topic 8 - Extend Understanding of Fraction Equivalence and Ordering

We begin our unit on fractions.  An important part of this topic is identifying equivalent fractions.  Equivalent fractions name the same part of a whole.  The number line below shows 1/3 and 2/6 are equivalent fractions, and 2/3 and 4/6 are equivalent fractions because they are the same distance from zero.  The concept of equivalent fractions will allow your child to compare fractions in this topic as well as add and subtract fractions in later topics.

Topic 9 - Understand Addition and Subtraction of Fractions

In this topic, your child will learn to add and subtract fractions with like denominators, or denominators that are the same.  To add fractions with like denominators, add the numerators and write the sum over the like denominator.

 

Your child will also learn to use fraction strips and number lines to represent the addition and subtraction of fractions with like denominators.

 

At Home Connection:

Please continue to work at home with your child to help them memorize their basic multiplication facts.  They will help them in our fractions unit. You can do this by asking your child random basic facts, skip counting with your child, or using flash cards.

 

Fractions Toss - Off for Topic 8

Materials number cube labeled 1 - 6 

Step 1  Toss a number cube once to generate a numerator and once or twice to generate a one-digit or two-digit denominator.  Repeat to create several fractions.

Step 2  Have your child decompose each fraction in two or more ways.

 

Fraction Writing for Topic 9 

Materials paper and pencil

Step 1: Write 1/4 , 1/2 , 2/4, 3/4 , 1/8 , and 1/12 on a piece of paper.

Step 2: Have your child name the fractions that have a common denominator and explain how to add those fractions.

Science: 

Energy Conversions 

In this  unit, students take on the role of systems engineers for Ergstown, a fictional town that experiences frequent blackouts, the anchor phenomenon for the unit. Throughout the unit, they explore reasons why an electrical system may fail. Through firsthand experiences, discourse, reading, writing, and engaging with a digital simulation, students make discoveries about the way electrical systems work. Then, students apply what they have learned as they choose new energy sources and energy converters for the town, using evidence to explain why their choices will make the electrical system more reliable. As they work to solve the problem of blackouts in Ergstown, students will use and construct devices that convert energy from one form to another, build an understanding of the electrical system, and learn to identify energy forms all around them.

Social Studies 

This past unit, students have learned about New York state's geography, our country, state, and borough. In our second unit, students will explore the ways in which Native American groups, specifically the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) and Algonquian-speaking peoples (Mahicans, Shinnecock, and Lenni Lenape), who lived in the southern parts of New York State, in what is now Long Island and the Hudson River Valley, interacted with their environment to develop unique, and complex cultures. Topics lessons within this unit include research and identifying elements of Native American culture and beliefs through myths and the storytelling tradition, examining geographic factors that influenced locations of early settlements; compare and contrast the ways people made use of natural resources to meet their basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter, and analyzing how Native American groups developed specific patterns of organization and governance to manage their societies.

At home connections:

Questions you can discuss with your child at home to help them better understand concepts  are:

1- What makes a community successful? 

2- How did the first Native Americans living in New York work, survive, and govern their society to create a successful community?

SPARK New Victory Theater:

Students in fourth grade are receiving fifteen workshops in theater with the teaching artists from New Victory Theater. The students will be studying puppetry and connecting their study to their own identity to tie to their previous HMH unit on Identity. The students attended a performance of “Little Murmur” at New Victory Theater in New York City on January 15th.

Art 🎨

Fourth grade artists will connect to their HMH module by creating artwork that represents protecting the planet. Students will make artwork connections to nature. Students will learn how to draw plants and flowers, as well as landscapes to make connections to different environments.

Student Voice

Anyaliah (402) -  In the last unit of reading I liked the “Rent Party Jazz” because it was an interesting problem and solution.

Mikael  (402) - In division last unit I liked thinking about how the remainder is used in real life.

Yuritzi (401): I liked learning about multiples and partial quotients. I really like the Heroic Feats unit in reading. 

Tabeeb: (401): I liked learning about factors and multiples.