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Two - Time US Department of Education High Performing National Blue Ribbon School - 2015 & 2022!

Fourth Grade

Fourth Graders

FOURTH GRADE OVERVIEW

The thrust of the fourth grade is the development of independence, personal and academic responsibility, as well as an awareness of the world and each person’s place within it. As the students progress through the year, their growth is easily measured in their time management and organizational skills which reflect their growing autonomy.

CURRICULUM

Religion

Using the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes, the students understand how to live as moral individuals. Through the study of the lives of saints, especially St. Francis of Assisi and St. Clare, the students appreciate how choices can impact others. The child-friendly version of the Ten Commandments given as a gift to the Academy's first communicants is an example of our faith in action. 
 
Language Arts
 
Students explore literary elements and techniques as they read novels. Discussions promote high-level thinking as they investigate, predict, interpret, and comprehend. 
 
Grammar is learned both in isolation and in application as the students use what is taught in all writing projects. Using process writing, the students write regularly. They begin with their first major research piece on a saint, which is then presented at the All Saints' Day liturgy, availing them the opportunity to practice their public speaking skills. 
 
The students also begin their formal study of Latin and Greek roots, which broadens their vocabularies and introduces them to etymology. 
 
Mathematics
 
The students build on the basic number concepts (mastery of fundamental operations, math facts, and place values), working toward developing higher-order problem solving skills. This allows them to explore fractions, decimals, and percentages, as well as geometry. 
 
Science
 
With the skills of a scientist, the students use the scientific method to assimilate information. They hypothesize, experiment, classify, infer, and observe their world through the study of plants, animals, ecology, anatomy, physics, and electricity. Scaffolding lessons have the students integrating material more completely. 
 
Social Studies
 
Students study the regions and states of the United States of America, reaching an understanding of how and why the country developed as it did. Using map skills, they travel across this great nation, culminating in a year-end "Celebrate the U.S.A. Day."