Students explore the enslavement of Africans and the Abolition Movement, historical and contemporary immigration, and Twentieth Century movements for equality and rights. These topics are examined in relation to the themes of identity, journeys, and the concept of home. Examples of human resilience and courage during times of hardship and injustice are highlighted.

Language Arts

reading

The fourth grade reading curriculum challenges students to interpret and synthesize fiction and nonfiction texts. Emphasis is placed on becoming increasingly skillful readers. Students are taught concepts, strategies, and techniques for reading fluency and comprehension. Children engage with literature through read-alouds, assigned novels, independent reading, and student-run book clubs. These readings enable discussion of vocabulary, characterization, plot development, and themes. Read-aloud choices reflect the strong connection between social studies and language arts in grade four.

Writing

In the writing program, students explore ways to communicate their ideas and feelings to a variety of audiences. Using mentor text models from both fiction and nonfiction, students create narrative pieces and poetry, as well as expository texts. Students are encouraged to see writing as a process that includes pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. They work on technical writing skills such as sentence and paragraph structure, capitalization, and punctuation of dialogue.

Library

Third through fifth grade students have library twice a week—once as an individual class (solo library) and once as a whole grade group (shared library). 

Newbery Award-winning author Laura Amy Schlitz will read or tell a story during library time in the story corner. Often, a brief discussion period will follow, and then students are dismissed for silent reading. They are also invited to browse and check out books, which they do independently. “Shared” library tends to favor formal presentations such as book talks, lectures about culture, dramatizations, and longer books and stories. Students also select books for Kindergarten reading partners. 

Mathematics

The fourth grade mathematics curriculum, Investigations in Number, Data, and Space, offers students an approach to mathematics that focuses on mathematical thinking and reasoning. It emphasizes depth of mathematical thinking rather than superficial exposure to a series of fragmented topics. Through these explorations, students learn to develop efficient strategies. The curriculum supports students in developing and expanding ideas and making sense of mathematical objects, structures, and connections. 

Units covered include:

• Factors, Multiples and, Arrays
• Describing the Shape of the Data: Data Analysis & Probability
• Multiple Towers and Division Stories: Multiplication and Division
• Size, Shape and Symmetry: 2-D Geometry and Measurement
• Landmarks and Large Numbers: Addition, Subtraction and The Number System
• Fraction Cards and Decimal Squares

Music

Music classes focus on learning to read music using both Solfège (do, re, mi…) and rhythm syllables (ta, ta-ti), and continue exploring singing voices through folk songs from around the world. The grade-level theme studies of Social Justice play an important role in our music classes. We study and learn songs from enslaved peoples, the Underground Railroad, and the abolitionist movement, and conclude with music from the Civil Rights era. Students will also engage in our exploratory instrumental program learning the basics of the clarinet, flute, and violin. In addition, every student participates in the Fourth Grade Chorus, which performs during our winter and spring programs.

Physical Education

Students continue toward mastery of gross motor skills and refine their fine motor skills. They improve their ability to implement previously learned knowledge of movement, fitness, and gameplay. Social and emotional emphasis relates to team formation and sportsmanship. Fourth graders become comfortable with relative space and movement. Park School Physical Education Habits of Mind (Best Effort, Respect, Cooperative Learning, Fair Play, Lifelong Fitness, Perseverance, and Skill Building) themes are reviewed and reinforced.

Science

In the first semester, we focus on identifying properties of matter and energy and design experiments relating to pH absorbency, optics, and chemical reactions. Students expand their understanding of matter and energy by studying body systems and their functions. They develop, critique, and refine experiments related to heart rate and skin nerve sensitivity. A final unit of the year focuses on pollinators and their role in the larger ecosystem. Using microscopes, they view flower anatomy and study its evolution and relation to pollination as they harvest specimens collected around the 100-acre campus. Online research skills build as fifth graders learn to identify reliable sources, perform simplified literature reviews, and present findings to their peers.

By exploring, hypothesizing, and testing their ideas about the world, students learn and practice concepts of experimental design to reduce bias, such as confounding variables, set controls, and identify statistical significance. Each experiment hones students’ abilities to independently discover new information through inquiry by strengthening their understanding of cause and effect, gathering important data from things going awry, and changing one factor at a time before running a new test.

Spanish

Fourth-grade students engage in language activities that develop both listening and speaking skills. Authentic cultural connections are purposefully woven into lessons, enhancing students’ global perspectives. Spanish teachers conduct classes primarily in Spanish and design curriculum that encourages students to participate and demonstrate understanding both verbally and physically. In fourth grade, students explore three major units. First, they learn how to express their likes and dislikes, enabling them to engage in conversations about their interests. Second, they learn about food. Third, they study the city. Throughout these units, students practice listening, reading, and writing, and focus on phonetics, verbs, and vocabulary as they build skills through songs, stories, and engaging projects.

Technology

In fourth grade, children explore ways to organize, evaluate, and ethically use information from online source media. Working collaboratively with the Lower School librarian, students actively participate in research stations to demonstrate and practice their research skills. Students utilize Google Sheets for spreadsheets and graphs and create 3-D designs with Google Draw and Tinkercad. Each fourth-grade student designs and prints a 3-D object to use. Students reflect and dive deeper into the key concepts of digital citizenship using lessons from Common Sense K-12 Digital Citizenship Curriculum. Building on their prior experience with Lego Mindstorms, they can successfully build and program a robot. Elective after-school programs offer third through fifth-grade students the opportunity to explore robotics and programming with Lego Mindstorms.

Theme Studies, Social Studies, History

The fourth grade concentrates on American history with an emphasis on freedom and justice. Students explore historical and contemporary immigration, the enslavement of Africans and the abolition movement, and twentieth-century movements for equality and rights, such as women’s rights and civil rights. These topics are examined in relation to the themes of identity, journeys, and the concept of home. Examples of human resilience and courage during times of hardship and injustice are highlighted. We look at historical events from various perspectives as well as through the eyes of everyday people. Students think about how America’s past has shaped its present.

Visual Arts

Fourth graders stretch and explore through investigations in drawing 3-D forms, advanced color mixing, painting with control, carving linoleum blocks, block printing posters that express personal values, rolling slab clay, exploring ceramic portraiture, and weaving shapes to create a small tapestry. Throughout the year, color is a point of focus that we revisit in multiple media. All students in Grades 3-5 keep a personal sketchbook for generating and recording ideas and designs, as well as a digital portfolio in which they document their process and their results.