Fourth Grade Curriculum Overview
Reading
Fourth
graders continue to read many types of text—literary, informational, and
practical pieces. Through reading, they can make connections with
situations beyond their own experience. In narrative texts, they
recognize organizational patterns and motives of characters. They can
make inferences, draw conclusions, and are learning to support their
opinions about what they read. Fourth graders are becoming more skillful
at following written directions and in reading for information in a
variety of sources.
Writing
Fourth graders write for a
variety of reasons and for different audiences They are learning to use
more detail, sequence, and description in their narratives. Narratives
have a logical, coherent, organized structure. As members of
“reading/writing groups,” they give suggestions for revision to others.
They edit their written work for basic sentence formation, usage,
mechanics, and spelling
Mathematics
The mathematics curriculum is organized into five strands:
(1) number and operations; (2) measurement; (3) geometry; (4) data
analysis and probability; and, (5) algebra. Problem-solving strategies
are imbedded into each of the 5 strands.
Proficient 4th grade
students have expanded their abilities to perform mathematical tasks and
to use models to demonstrate their understanding. They are confident in
exploring new concepts with concrete materials because they have had
repeated opportunities to experiment with manipulatives. The evaluation
of student achievement in mathematics should reflect what students can
do, explain, and record.
Social Studies
Fourth grade
students proceed from studying their community to a study of the state
of North Carolina. Students learn about the characteristics of North
Carolinians, who we are and where we came from. The geographic regions,
landforms, climate, and resources are explored. The social, economic,
and political institutions are studied as students develop a broad
context of the southeast, the nation, and the world economy.
Science
The focus for fourth grade students is on analyzing systems and learning how they work.
Science Concepts: animal behavior and adaptation, composition and uses
of rocks and minerals, electricity and magnetism, food energy for growth
and repair of the body
Art/Music
Arts Education includes
four separate and distinct disciplines; dance, music, theatre arts, and
visual arts—each with its own body of knowledge and skills, The intent
of the National Standards for Arts Education, along with the standard
courses of study in each area, is that a comprehensive understanding of
one or more of the arts is accomplished by each student throughout the
K-12 Program.
Health/PE
The Healthful Living Education
program promotes behaviors that contribute to a healthful life-style and
improved quality of life for all students. The Healthful Living
Education portions of the NC Standard Course of Study support and
reinforce the goals and objectives of its two major components—health
education and physical education.