4th Grade

WELCOME TO FOURTH GRADE! 

Fourth grade is an exciting time of learning, growth, and expanding your horizons. At ICCA we believe in educating the whole child while fostering a love of God, others and ourselves. Fourth grade is a very important year, as students will be taking two New York State exams in the areas of: ELA (April) and Math (May). Every day begins with prayer. We first pray together as a school community. We attend monthly liturgies, as well as liturgical events such as the Stations of the Cross, recitation of the Rosary, and the crowing of our Mary. Our faith is part of our daily lives, with Jesus in the lead.

Religion:

We will be reading and analyzing the Ten Commandments throughout the school year, discussing how they help us love ourselves, God, and others. We’ll look into the liturgical year and how we remember and celebrate Jesus Christ at home, at school, and at Mass. We explore our faith by studying and learning from the Bible, and continue to learn how God wants us to live by His word. Our We Believe book focuses on the ways that we believe, worship and live.

Math:

Students will continue their math knowledge by connecting numbers to their daily lives. They will build a concrete understanding of place value and use this understanding to add and subtract multi-digit numbers. They will learn how to multiply, divide small and large numbers, classify angles and geometric shapes, as well as use multiple ways to manipulate fractions. It is very important that students know all their multiplication tables. Having this foundation will give them the opportunity to analyze and solve problems. Students will learn about line graphs, pie graphs, and bar graphs. The students will come to know that math is truly everywhere. We will use HMH Into Math to aid our learning this year.

Reading:

We are working toward independence this year. To reach this goal we will focus on reading strategies to guide our students in their reading and writing. Our year will be filled with great fiction and nonfiction books. Throughout the year students will develop their skills in comprehension, analysis, and vocabulary. Help our fourth graders be lifelong readers by reading with them at home, listening to them read to you and seeing that they read each night.

Language Arts: 

We are reviewing our parts of speech and moving to classifying sentences. Voyages is a program that focuses on teaching grammar and writing skills. We will also work on spelling each week, using vocabulary words taken in context from the current novel being read.

Writing 

Voyages: Students will further explore different types of writing, such as: narrative, expository, opinion, and informative. The students will also identify text structure as well as the author’s purpose and viewpoint. Students will strengthen their writing skills and prepare for answering essay questions similar to what they will see on their state tests.

Science:

Science Fusion: We will begin by taking a look at plants, animals, ecosystems, and our impact on natural resources. The students will move into exploring physical science. They will investigate matter and its changes, figure out where energy comes from, and manipulate electricity and motion. As they move into earth and space science, students will observe weather and water. Students will look at the ways the planets and moon affect us here on Earth.

Social Studies:

This year will be using the Pearson Social Studies textbook. This publication uses will guide us by starting with the geography of New York State. We will also cover American groups and their interactions with the environment, the American government, colonialism and the call for independence, industrialization and immigration and migration from 1800s to present day.

Grading System:

A+     = 97-100

A       = 93-96

B+     = 89-92

B       = 85-88

C+     = 81-84

C       = 77-80

D+     = 74-76

D       = 70-73

F       = Below 70

Communication:

I will be using Class Dojo to post reminders and any other important information.

Please feel free to email me at: [email protected]

Above all we want to have a classroom where we respect each other, grow to love learning, and have fun. We will work hard every day and we will always try our best. It’s going to be a great year!