Curriculum
Language Arts
- Read narrative and expository text aloud fluently, with appropriate pacing, intonation, and expression.
- Use knowledge of root words and affixes to analyze the meaning of complex words.
- Identify structural patterns in informational text to strengthen comprehension.
- Use prior knowledge to make and confirm predictions.
- Compare and contrast information on a set topic from different sources.
- Distinguish between cause and effect, fact and opinion.
- Define figurative language (simile, metaphor) and identify its use in literary works.
- Apply the writing process in creating multiple-paragraph compositions.
- Write legibly in script and cursive penmanship styles.
- Write narratives, responses to literature, and informational reports.
- Identify and use regular and irregular verbs, adverb, prepositions, and conjunctions in writing.
- Present effective oral introductions and conclusions that inform the listener using volume, pitch, and modulation.
- Recite brief poems, soliloquies, and dramatic speeches and dialogues with expression.
Mathematics
Number Sense
- Understand place value of digits to 1,000,000.
- Represent fractions, decimals, and mixed numbers on the number line.
- Add, subtract, multiply, divide multi-digit numbers.
- Factor composite numbers to their prime factors.
Algebra & Functions
- Interpret variables and properties of number to simplify expressions.
- Evaluate expressions using the order of operations.
- Recognize that in y = 2x + 4, one variable can be determined given the value of the other.
- Interpret and apply simple formulas.
Statistics, Data Analysis & Probability
- Organize, represent and interpret numerical data on a variety of graphs.
Measurement & Geometry
- Explore and apply concept of perimeter and area.
- Use two-dimensional coordinate grids to plot points and graph lines in the coordinate plane.
- Identify parallel and perpendicular lines; radius and diameter; acute, obtuse, and right angles.
Mathematical Reasoning
- Use a variety of strategies and problem-solving skills to determine solutions.
Science
Physical Science
- Explore concepts of electricity and magnetism.
- Design and build series and parallel circuits.
- Recognize that magnets have poles that repel each other.
Life Science
- Discover that plants, as producers, are the primary source of energy, and that animals are consumers.
Earth Science
- Explore the properties of rocks and minerals.
- Study the impact of wind, wave, and water erosion on the earth.
Investigation and Experimentation
- Understand that scientific progress is made by asking meaningful questions and concluding meaningful experiments.
- Apply the Scientific Process to experimentation.
Social Studies
- Demonstrate an understanding of the geographic features that define places and regions in California.
- Study the impact of Native Americans, Spanish, and Mexican influence on California.
- Discuss how and why early pioneers traveled, and analyze the effects of the Gold Rush on daily living.
- Read maps and charts which show key information on vegetation and natural resources in California.
Religion
- Learn the traditional prayers of the Catholic Church.
- Discover that Jesus is our Redeemer.
- Learn that God’s relationship with his people is based on unconditional love.
- Recognize Scripture as the story of God’s covenant with his people, and that we are part of the Body of Christ.
- Embrace Mary as the Mother of Jesus and the model of obedience.
- View liturgy and prayer as responses to God’s love.
- Recognize that the Church is structured and hierarchial.
- Understand there are laws, rules, and guidelines for our behavior, as exemplified in the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes.
- Explore and apply Catholic virtues in developing personal responsibility and moral decision-making skills.
- Reach out to others in a spirit of Christian stewardship and service.
- Understand the dignity of human life and our uniqueness as created in God’s image.
- Explore the concept of family and learn that we are all connected in the family of God.
Formal Prayers in 4th Grade
- Sign of the Cross
- Our Father
- Hail Mary
- Grace Before/After Meals
- Act of Contrition
- Act of Faith
- Apostle’s Creed
- Responses at Mass
- Prayer to the Holy Spirit
- The Rosary
- Stations of the Cross