WELCOME TO 4TH GRADE!

Blog Post Written By: Ms. Lisa Horn, 4th Grade Teacher

Fourth grade is quite the learning adventure! We continue to build on concepts learned in third grade like multiplication and division, but take it to a whole other level when we learn strategies on multiplying two digit numbers, and then introduce fractions and angles. Fourth graders also write daily and learn to add detail, purpose and personality into their writing. Our scholars never fail to rise to the challenge and display amazing growth. My favorite part of fourth grade is seeing emotional growth and supporting students through conflicts and emotions. I engage with hands-on activities throughout the year and constantly adapt to the learning needs of the individual students.

Social/ Emotional 

• MELA Tickets: In 4th grade we follow MELA expectations by being mindful, empathetic, leaders, and accountable. Students get three MELA tickets to give to students showing MELA expectations. I let them know that I am not always around (lunch, gym, and music) so they need to catch their friends showing expectations and make sure they receive a ticket for it. At the end of each week I have a MELA drawing and pull one ticket from mindful, empathetic, leaders, and accountable for a small prize. I think their favorite part is being able to also give me MELA tickets, it keeps me accountable and I love being part of it. 
• Mindfulness: Calm Connect, our mindfulness program, is a patented system used around the world that contains dozens of short digital sequences designed to calm the nervous system and build a bridge to the social world quickly and effectively. 

• Student of the Week: Star scientist  is something new this year. Each week a student is selected to be the star student/ star scientist. They complete an 'all about me' poster and choose one science experiment to present to the class on Wednesday. Students work hard decorating and writing on their poster to share out on their day, and then they walk us through the process of their experiment and demonstrate it while wearing a lab coat :) This year we have seen slime, volcanos, floating paper clips, the invisible egg and more. Students learn from others and this is a wonderful way that I spotlight each of my students in the classroom. 

Literacy
During whole group literacy instruction, we teach important reading skills while also integrating science. Most recently we have been learning about severe weather! We continue our literacy work in our small reading groups. All students meet with the teacher 4 days a week to get more personalized reading instruction that caters to their reading level! Students have been working on stretching their sentences by adding more detail and answering who, what, when, where and why questions in their writing. After learning about all of the severe weather that happens, students began researching more about one of these to write a nonfiction piece. Their stories are such a wonderful way to show off learning, research skills and writing. 

Math
In math, we use Bridges Math Curriculum to help build a solid understanding of math skills while also learning multiple strategies to solve addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems. We focus heavily on small group instruction for math as well. All students meet with the teacher 4 days a week to get more personalized math instruction that caters to their needs! During small groups our students work in stations which include technology, hands-on, independent practice, and meet with the teacher. In these stations I have observed collaboration, team work, problem solving and stamina.