4th Grade
Fourth Grade Curriculum Overview
Reading
Fourth graders continue to read many types of text—literary, informational, and practical pieces. Through reading, they can make connections with situations beyond their own experience. In narrative texts, they recognize organizational patterns and motives of characters. They can make inferences, draw conclusions, and are learning to support their opinions about what they read. Fourth graders are becoming more skillful at following written directions and in reading for information in a variety of sources.
Writing
Fourth graders write for a variety of reasons and for different audiences They are learning to use more detail, sequence, and description in their narratives. Narratives have a logical, coherent, organized structure. As members of “reading/writing groups,” they give suggestions for revision to others. They edit their written work for basic sentence formation, usage, mechanics, and spelling
Mathematics
The mathematics curriculum is organized into five strands:
(1) number and operations; (2) measurement; (3) geometry; (4) data analysis and probability; and, (5) algebra. Problem-solving strategies are imbedded into each of the 5 strands.
Proficient 4th grade students have expanded their abilities to perform mathematical tasks and to use models to demonstrate their understanding. They are confident in exploring new concepts with concrete materials because they have had repeated opportunities to experiment with manipulatives. The evaluation of student achievement in mathematics should reflect what students can do, explain, and record.
Social Studies
Fourth grade students proceed from studying their community to a study of the state of North Carolina. Students learn about the characteristics of North Carolinians, who we are and where we came from. The geographic regions, landforms, climate, and resources are explored. The social, economic, and political institutions are studied as students develop a broad context of the southeast, the nation, and the world economy.
Science
The focus for fourth grade students is on analyzing systems and learning how they work.
Science Concepts: animal behavior and adaptation, composition and uses of rocks and minerals, electricity and magnetism, food energy for growth and repair of the body
Art/Music
Arts Education includes four separate and distinct disciplines; dance, music, theatre arts, and visual arts—each with its own body of knowledge and skills, The intent of the National Standards for Arts Education, along with the standard courses of study in each area, is that a comprehensive understanding of one or more of the arts is accomplished by each student throughout the K-12 Program.
Health/PE
The Healthful Living Education program promotes behaviors that contribute to a healthful life-style and improved quality of life for all students. The Healthful Living Education portions of the NC Standard Course of Study support and reinforce the goals and objectives of its two major components—health education and physical education.