Grade 4

Welcome to Miss Bianca's Fourth Grade Class!

Second Trimester Fun!

Our fourth graders are having a blast this trimester! Here is what they are learning:

Spelling: Students learn 20 new vocabulary words every week, applying them in several different subjects across the curriculum. Each week, students learn a new spelling rule that guides their learning throughout the week. 

Reading: Students read a variety of texts, ranging from informative, narrative, and persuasive readings. Students practice reading comprehension, utilizing skills such as making inferences, predictions, noticing, and connecting texts to their personal lives and the world. Students enjoy reading out loud during class, as well as identifying key vocabulary words. Whether it's an informative scientific article or a fun poem, students read texts from around the world, learning about different cultures and words in various languages along the way.

Written Language: Fourth grade writing builds upon capitalization and punctuation skills, as well as nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Students begin to learn how to write both narrative and informative essays, continuously working on sentence and paragraph structure. Students enjoy writing persuasive essays, research reports, poems, and plays.

Mathematics- Fourth grade mathematics dives deeply into various subjects, including place value, multiplication, division, fractions, measurement, and geometry. Students continue to use mathematics to connect to real world scenarios, and are introduced to several different math projects as a way to apply mathematical skills to every day situations.

Science- Science has recently focused on the Muscular and Skeletal systems. Students learned how to identify 10 muscles on a muscle diagram, how to look at photos and identify the three types of muscle tissue, the difference between voluntary and involuntary muscles, identifying 10-15 bones, understanding how bone shape impacts bone strength and endurance, and understanding how calcium and minerals benefit bone strength. We also finished our unit on properties of matter, and are now discussing several aspects of earth science, including the layers of the earth, erosion, the solar system, and the ocean. Students participate in several experiments throughout the year. We also visit our innovative Maker Space, where we complete numerous scientific projects, including coding robots in order to display what life is like under the sea.

Social Studies- If you ask one of our students to look at a world map and identify key aspects of it, they will be able to! Students have focused on understanding and interpreting maps. We learned how to label all seven continents on a world map, how to identify the Equator and Prime Meridian, lines of latitude and longitude, and the Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western Hemispheres. Next, students will be learning about different landforms. There is an emphasis on Connecticut history in fourth grade as well, and students had the opportunity to identify towns and cities on a Connecticut map, and learn about famous people throughout Connecticut history. We also discuss economic choice and entrepreneurship, as well as several historical events that helped shape Connecticut and our nation. 

Religion- Students begin and end every day with prayer, and attend Mass every Tuesday. This month has focused on church structure, and having students understand how Peter was considered the first Pope, and every Pope after succeeds him. Students are able to identify Pope Francis and Archbishop Blair, as well as Father Dietrich. They compared church leaders to governmental leaders, identifying the similarities and differences between them. Students also reviewed the seven Sacraments by completing worksheets as well as acting them out through educational plays. Coming up, students will continue to do a deep dive into Scripture, focusing on understanding and interpreting key stories and lessons from the Bible. 

We are having such a great time so far!