Fourth Grade
Fourth Grade Overview
As the oldest children in the lower school, fourth graders are given the privilege of leadership opportunities throughout the school day. We believe students at FRA learn best by participating in rigorous, real-world learning experiences. Students are engaged in learning opportunities that develop problem-solving skills, and they find success and build understanding through collaboration, investigation, and conversation. To contribute to a supportive learning community in a Christian environment, they learn skills and values to become responsible students of strong character. Our goal is for students to become enthusiastic, lifelong learners who exhibit leadership skills and a commitment to excellence.
Program Highlights: We provide a variety of meaningful learning experiences that foster each child’s character and academic development. These opportunities lead students along their educational journey.
• 1:1 iPads: Every student in fourth grade is provided a school-owned iPad to use throughout the school day. This outstanding tool enhances learning and provides a variety of mediums for students to acquire knowledge and practice skills.
• Fourth Grade Retreat: Students will take a yearly retreat at the beginning of the school year to build community and leadership skills.
• Fourth Grade Visual and Performing Arts Show: This event showcases the artistic talents of the fourth grade class. Each student produces a work of visual art and participates in the performance either on stage or as a theatrical technician behind the scenes.
• Leadership Opportunities: All fourth grade students participate in a Leadership Retreat at the beginning of the school year to learn about opportunities throughout the year, such as serving as greeters in the morning to assist the younger children as they exit their cars.
• Panther Pals: In an effort to connect the fourth grade students with the seventh grade students, Panther Pals events are held several times throughout the year. During these events, fourth grade students and seventh grade students participate in community-building activities. This fosters relationships between the two classes, who will represent the fifth grade and eighth grade classes in the middle school the following school year.
• Philanthropy Focus: Literacy is our philanthropic focus for fourth grade. The students are paired with emerging readers from a local school and spend quality time sharing the joy of literature. The fourth grade classes visit several times during the school year to build relationships and foster literacy. Students are given the opportunity to participate in a “read-a-thon” in order to raise money and purchase books for their reading partners.
• Winter Olympics: Students participate in an annual Winter Olympics competition. This event is a collaboration of the learning that takes place in enrichments as well as the general classroom.
Academic Highlights
Literacy:
• Using strategies and skills to engage in active reading
• Utilizing a variety of literary genres to expose students to complex text structures and content
• Developing vocabulary and word analysis skills
Math:
• Empowering students to use number sense to identify relationships within whole numbers
• Applying multiple functions of fractions and decimals
• Solving real-world word problems using multiple mathematic strategies and operations
• Applying accurate spelling patterns to writing
• Writing to communicate for a variety of purposes
• Conveying mastery of grammatical conventions in writing
• Making sense of measurement quantities, conversions, and their relationships
• Comprehending and applying geometric attributes
• Collecting and analyzing data to construct viable arguments and justify reasoning
Science: Social Studies:
• Investigating and studying earth science, life science, and physical science
• Engaging in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) learning activities
• Understanding the history and development of each region of the United States
• Comparing and contrasting the culture, geography, and economies of the five U.S. regions
Fourth Grade Program Schedule
7:45 a.m. Arrival: Students begin arriving in the classroom. They unpack their backpacks and work on morning work activities.
7:50 a.m. Devotion: The teacher shares a Bible story, and the class prays together. On Wednesdays, students attend a lower school chapel program led by various FRA staff members and individual classrooms.
8:05 a.m. Literacy: Students are actively engaged in a structured literacy curriculum using a systematic multilinguistic approach. Opportunities to develop fluency through varied strategies such as a reader’s theater and parter reading occur daily. Fourth graders learn about words’ origins, morphology, and parts of speech to grasp a better understanding of meanings and spellings of words. Teachers immerse students in rich literature and engaging nonfiction text to explicitly teach vocabulary, grammar, and comprehension strategy. Students enjoy novels from a variety of genres throughout shared reading and liuterature circles.
9:30 a.m. Enrichments: Students attend one of five enrichment classes for 45 minutes each day: STEM Lab • Guidance • Performing Arts
10:15 a.m
11:30 a.m.
Visual Arts
Media Center • Spanish
Math: We use the Math in Focus: Singapore Math curriculum to guide our daily math instruction. This program encourages exploration to develop deep conceptual understanding through a focus on problem solving. Students engage in learning activities that strengthen number sense and critical thinking. The learning progression of our instruction develops from concrete to pictorial to abstract.
Writing: Written expression is the deepest level of literacy. Fourth graders are explicitly taught grammar and mechanics so they are properly equipped with the tools needed to draft, edit, write, revise, and publish their own writing pieces. Throughout the year, students engage in the entire writing process creating an expository nonfiction piece, an opinion piece, and a fiction piece. Students respond to reading in their journals on a weekly basis, and teachers regularly collaborate and conference with fourth graders to set individualized writing goals.
12:15 p.m. Lunch
12:45 p.m. Recess: Fourth grade students enjoy a common recess time on the playground.
1:15 p.m. Science or Social Studies: Our science study encompasses life science, physical science, and earth science. Work in the STEM lab supports the science curriculum being taught in the classroom. In social studies, students study map skills and learn about the five regions of the United States. During their study, they learn about the geography, history, economy, and culture of each region.
1:45 p.m. Physical Education: All fourth grade students participate in P.E. together for 30 minutes four days a week.
2:40 p.m. Dismissal