Curriculum

Grade 4

1^st Trimester

Religion – Students will be introduced to creation and how the world evolved.  Bible usage will be covered.  We will be looking at the lives of Saints and the 10 Commandments to see how they help us to choose to love God.

Math – Students will spend an extensive amount of time on the four basic operations, as well as applying these skills to more advanced math work such as long division and two digit by two digit multiplication. The school year will start off with a review of place value and an introduction to decimals through the use of money. Terminology and word problems will continue to be an integral part of this course. 

Integrated Language Arts – The language arts curriculum revolves around the subjects of grammar, spelling, vocabulary, and creative writing. An extensive amount of time will be spent on grammar this trimester and throughout the school year. Students will study the structure of sentences and work through the identification process of the parts of speech. Students will also be creating original pieces of writing this trimester, not limited to poetry and descriptive paragraphs. Students are also immersed in a spelling and vocabulary lesson each week.

Students will also be responsible for a book review this trimester.

Reading – Anthology -  “Traditions”

Theme I – “Journeys”

Theme II – “American Stories”

Students will journey through our anthology as they read stories about miraculous journeys, such as the discovery of the Titanic; to stories which speak of out nation’s wonderful cultural traditions and history.

The following comprehension skills and will be introduced and reinforced within these two themes: story structure, author’s viewpoint, text organization, noting details, sequence of events, making inferences, generalizing, and categorizing and classifying items into groups.

The following reading strategies have an overlapping theme through all content areas: predict/infer, questioning, monitor/clarify, summarize, and evaluate your reading.

Students will also complete the first of three literature circles this trimester. Our first book of the year is Stone Fox.

Science – We will start the year with the Earth Sciences. Our first unit will be on Oceanography. We will venture under the waves and explore the least studied part of our planet. Students will then move into the study of Earth’s Atmosphere. The trimester will continue with the study of matter as we explore the world of physical science.

Students will expand their knowledge through time in the science lab and projects.

Social Studies – The first trimester of social studies will concentrate on the seven continents of the world and the geography of Pennsylvania; with an emphasis on it location, cities, rivers, and its mountains. We will also start exploring the history of Pennsylvania through our unit on the Native American tribes in this area.