Fourth Grade

OBJECTIVES AND GOALS

SPIRITUAL LIFE

Northshore integrates faith and learning as we educate and equip the whole child

BIBLE

The Fourth Grade Bible Curriculum focuses on the foundational teachings from the Bible about the nature and character of God, the qualities of His people, and His church. Students are given an overview of the Bible, with an emphasis on God’s attributes, biblical characters, the early Church, and what it means to know Jesus Christ and live for Him. There are special segments for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.

BIBLE MEMORIZATION

Students are taught to memorize a scripture passage each week, except during the weeks students are memorizing their speech meet piece.

CHAPEL

One day each week, students attend Chapel with other classes. They enjoy worship through singing, Bible lessons, character trait awards, and student of the month awards. They are inspired to expand their faith and put into practice what they hear from guest speakers, who challenge them to live a Godly life.

FOURTH Grade Teachers

At Northshore Christian Academy in the 4th Grade Department, our students are blessed with incredible educators who have the high distinction of: over 50 years of experience teaching and are ACSI accredited and have Washington State Teaching Certificates. Our teachers feel called to be exemplary educators and come from diverse and prominent teaching backgrounds that equip them with the tools necessary to meet the needs of each of our students.

As a Christian school, located in Everett, WA, we have the pleasure of partnering with families, local schools and businesses to give our students a well-rounded education. Our program focuses not only on the exemplary academics and their spiritual development of each student, but also their social and emotional development. Our program diligently works to support each of our students in their scholarly and personally endeavors as it helps shape and mold them into thriving members of our community.

Through collaborative teamwork, facilitated by our Learner Centered Collaboration (LCC), our teachers are able to create an environment of dynamically different teaching styles and strategically consistent curriculum. This allows our teachers to successfully impact our students by supporting all different learning styles. Northshore’s teamwork approach in evaluating data, such as our standardized testing, helps our program continue to be at the forefront of producing students ready to lead the world.

ACADEMIC LIFE

LANGUAGE

Literacy program features an organized, multi-sensory, direct approach to teaching reading, writing, grammar, spelling and handwriting. 90 minutes of literacy is taught each day through the Reader’s Workshop and Writer’s Workshop method using small group, differentiated instruction. Content includes

Composition

Recognizing/writing good sentences
Recognizing sentence fragments
Recognizing/writing declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, and imperative sentences.
Reviewing all capitalization/punctuation rules learned in 3rd grade, as well as learning additional rules
Writing friendly letters, essays, narratives, and poems
Learning the writing and publishing process
Writing/delivering oral book reports/presentations

Grammar

Mastering subjects and predicates-simple/compound
Recognizing/using all eight parts of speech

Verbs- action, state of being, helping; verb phrases; regular/irregular verbs.
Nouns-common, proper, compound; plurals of nouns
Pronouns-use in writing; possessive pronouns

WRITING

Writers Workshop approach utilizes ‘Traits of Writing’ in different genres. Students write opinion pieces, informational texts, and narrative texts. Students learn the elements of written communication so that they can grow in written expression. Students use correct punctuation, capitalization, and formatting to make their writing clear and understandable. Students will select an appropriate, interesting idea to carry through a story, compare/contrast written pieces, which use ordinary versus exciting word choice, edit, write with the correct organization, having a beginning, middle and end, and write with sentence fluency and voice through hearing and discussing pieces that possess these qualities. In Handwriting, students are able to refine the correct cursive structure, including slant, form, shape, alignment, size, and spacing. They are expected to apply neat and correct cursive to their daily assignments.

READING

Fourth-grade students develop skills in oral reading, vocabulary, and comprehension through various genres of literature and novels using CIA Reader’s Workshop strategies. By studying the different genres they identify and analyze characters, settings, and other elements of a story. Students learn to synthesize, determine importance, infer, ask questions, use fix-up strategies, monitor comprehension, use sensory images in writing responses to a variety of reading novels, make predictions, and access schema while reading independently. Students will read and comprehend literature and informational text in the grades 4-5 text complexity band proficiently, with support as needed at the high end of the range.

SPELLING

Weekly lessons focus on a spelling strategy that describes a common spelling rule or principle. Lists are differentiated to meet student needs and help students see relationships among words. Students investigate and understand sounds, spelling and meaning relationships in words. Students are also held accountable for the application of learned spelling rules and patterns in their writing assignments.

MATH

Students participate in higher-order and critical thinking with content that focuses on student inquiry, Math Talk, and modeling of examples with practice. Math Expressions has three components: focus, coherence, and rigor. Content is focused on the essential learning of core concepts for Mathematics. Program content is organized into meaningful progressions that connect key topics between the grade levels. Content is presented for students to gain a deep conceptual understanding, fluency with procedures, and the ability to apply their understanding to solve problems.

SOCIAL STUDIES

Students explore the geography, culture, and people of the State of Washington through the use of reading, research, discussion, and participation in individual and group projects.

SCIENCE

Science is a year-long science program that integrates direct instruction; inquiry based instruction and differentiated instruction. Hands on science kits, technology resources and textbooks are used as learning tools. Science units include life science, earth science, physical science, space and technology. Based on inquiry-rich content with a sequence of structured and supportive inquiry activities, the science curriculum provides materials for both students and teachers in print, video, and online. This method of developing scientific knowledge is called scaffolded inquiry and is aimed at developing the independent investigative skills of the students through hands-on activities and through the use of text materials. Classroom science kits provide for hands-on activities designed to maximize the students’ time on exploration and data gathering which provide the substance of the inquiry-driven investigations. Leveled Readers are used to differentiate instruction by providing at and above grade level material.

Specialists

Computers

With an ever-changing world driven by continual technological advancements equipping our students with a firm foundation in technology education is essential. Our students are taught proper typing techniques, with lots of practice resulting in sharpened accuracy and speed. We ensure our students are grounded with a Bible-based, Christian perspective. The focus of computers in fourth grade is to touch on computer ethics from a Christian perspective and to develop problem solving techniques. Typing skills will be practiced throughout the semester. This course covers a variety of software applications and introduces students to Microsoft Office 2010 (Word 2010, PowerPoint 2010, and Publisher 2010). Students will use these software applications for special assignments in their core subjects such as English, history, and science. Students will also be introduced to the Internet and safe searching techniques.

Library

Students cover the Dewey Decimal system, parts of a book, encyclopedias, the atlas, and writing a book report once a week for 30 minutes.

Music

Grade 4 General Music is a year long class meeting two times per week for 30 minutes where we explore all aspects of music through listening, singing, reading, movement, and playing a variety of instruments. In fourth grade we give students the opportunity to specifically learn basic recorder-playing skills and knowledge. Students learn musical concepts, vocabulary, singing skills, and performance skills as well as music history and appreciation. They are exposed to a variety of musical genres as well as awareness of various instruments and their uses within those genres. Students are encouraged to use music as a form of communication in expressing their thoughts and feelings. Students are encouraged that music can be a powerful tool to communicate with God and about God. They are encouraged to develop their skills in order to do that more effectively and to bring honor and glory to God by doing it to the best of their abilities.

PE

The students learn teamwork and sportsmanship and participate in a variety of athletic activities to facilitate the development of motor skills, coordination, and physical fitness. Basic game skills are taught for flag football, floor hockey, basketball, soccer, volleyball, tumbling, track and field, and juggling.

Spanish

All Spanish classes at Northshore are taught with a method called TPR Storytelling which uses four consecutive steps of language acquisition: hearing, speaking, reading and writing. Students hear and respond to new vocabulary, participate in building stories with that vocabulary and respond to questions with answers and discussion. They are soon able to add their own ideas in Spanish. Songs, games, and skits are all part of the system that has fluency in Spanish as its aim. During two half-hour classes per week, students hear and act out stories about Gabi the Cat in Spanish continuing the lessons in Cuéntame by TPRS publishing. They can answer and ask questions, add their own story endings and make up their own original stories all in Spanish. New vocabulary includes clothing, animals, many verbs, numbers to 1,000,000, and learn Spanish worship songs, etc.

Art

Students study seven famous artists each year such as Monet, Picasso, van Gogh, Cassatt, Homer, Mondrian, and Escher. They study their artwork and techniques that have made their artwork world-renowned. Students learn art theory and techniques through hands-on art projects that build art skills using various mediums. Quality projects to be displayed during the Fine Arts Fair and at the end of the year.

Engineering – Project Lead the Way

Project Lead the Way (PLTW) is the leading provider of rigorous and innovative Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education curricular programs. The program is set up in modules that follow the design process. Each 10-hour module is aligned to grade-level standards and incorporates the process of hands-on engineering. In fourth grade, students utilize mobile robotics and build on their prior experience, to design, model, test, and refine a device that converts electrical energy to mechanical energy. The students explore engineering careers that involve energy conservation and mechanical design.