Fourth Grade Classwork Overview:
We begin these "bell-ringers" on day one, and they continue all year long. They are great grammar reviews of capitalization, punctuation, parts of speech, and sentence combining.
We practice phonograms daily along with handwriting; students are then tested on 20 phonograms every Friday. We study approximately 30 words each week in our Spalding Notebooks which compile the list of Spelling words for tests each Friday. Sentence dictation tests on Friday help students practice composing complete sentences with proper conventions.
In fourth grade, we start with reviewing basic concepts and then go more in depth throughout the year. We cover multi-digit multiplication and long division, as well as understanding fractions and decimals. A list of lesson topics can be found here: Saxon Helps.
We will read 4-6 novels throughout the year. It is helpful to NOT pre-read the texts, so students can make fresh predictions and be more engaged in a new experience. In addition to improving fluency and comprehension skills, we practice mental actions (where we monitor our thinking while we read), and identify the text structure. We also learn the attributes of fine literature.
We practice all forms of writing from narrative to informative, along with a mixture of the two. We also strengthen skills needed to form persuasive opinion papers and complex summaries. Students focus on the steps of the writing progress, especially revising and editing to enrich their ideas.
We start with recognizing types of sentences and then focus on the rules of capitalization and punctuation. Later on in the year, we dive into each part of speech, starting with nouns and ending with adverbs.
We have several units to cover throughout the year and switch between science and history throughout the term, spending about 5 weeks on science and one week on history until near the end of the year when we cover mostly history. We learn about geography, pioneers, Indians (history) and rocks/soils, fossils, weather, the water cycle, and environments (science).
