4th Grade

Fourth Grade Syllabus

                                                                                                                                                 

 Fourth Grade Syllabus  

 

4th Grade Happenings

Summary of Module 6 Marvels of Nature: In this module, our class will build their knowledge with information about Earth’s natural wonders. There will be a genre focus on informational text that provides students with  opportunities to identify text and graphic features, central ideas, and text structures in order to better understand unfamiliar texts. Students will also encounter poetry and literary nonfiction to build knowledge across genres. As students build their vocabulary and synthesize topic knowledge, they will learn that our world is full of unique places with amazing wonders on land, in the ocean, and in the sky.

Reading: Over the course of Module 5 we will read texts that will help us answer the following

Essential Question: What makes Earth’s natural wonders exciting and unique? We will develop and work on the following reading skills and strategies: Identifying Text and Graphic Features, Text Structure, Identify the central idea and supporting details, Elements of poetry, and Author’s Craft.

 Natural Wonders Web Map
Land, Water, Sky   

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 discuss 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 informational text. Discuss with your child the characteristics of this genre, such as it gives facts and information about a topic. 

Look for texts that: 

  • spark your child’s curiosity. 
  • tie to the module topic. 
  • provide interesting facts and details. 
  • have unique formats and graphic features.

Build Vocabulary: Use these ideas to help your child build a rich vocabulary.

 The Big Idea: Reinforce the topic words scenic, landscape, canyon, and landform in conversations with your child. 

Use prompts like these: 

  • What is your favorite landform, and why? 
  • Describe a landscape. 

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 Greek roots auto, bio, photo, graph the suffixes –ness and –ment; and the prefix inter– 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. 

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. 

 Traditional Stories Web Map
Folktale, Fable, Legend, Tall Tale  

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.

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.

Fraction Number line

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.

Adding Fractions 3/12 +8/12=11/12 

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?

Music Curriculum: 

Students in class 401 are concluding their music residency with a concert performance scheduled for February 7th 2025 at 9:45am. The students will be learning about the heroic actions of historical figures such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King as they prepare a performance entitled “I Have a Dream.” Their study will tie to their HMH unit on “Heroic Feats”. Students should wear Red, Yellow or Green tops and black bottoms to school for their performance on February 7th. 

Art 🎨

Fourth grade artists will connect to their HMH module by creating a landscape based on the Natural Wonders. Students will explore what a landscape is through visual images and a variety of artists. Students will understand how to create a foreground, middleground, and background to create their landscapes.

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.