Wilshire Elementary

Fourth Grade

 

Mrs. E. Ellis	Miss R. Munoz
Mrs. C. Kliewer

 

Fourth grade takes the skills learned in the earlier grades and greatly expands on these skills. Fourth grade reading allows students to take more responsibility for their own comprehension of the text, especially non-fiction. Students use prefixes and suffixes as well as context to help identify unknown words. They are expected to find the main idea and supporting details of a story, explain cause and effect, and distinguish fact from opinion.

Fourth graders truly become a writing community. Students choose topics based on areas of personal expertise or assigned prompts. They use graphic organizers to plan out their writing. They work with teachers as well as each other to edit and revise papers until they have created well written finished products.

        In Math, fourth graders focus on addition and subtraction of large numbers. We also cover multiplication and division more extensively. Some geometric skills that students learn are to identify types of angles, attributes of common shapes, and to differentiate between intersecting, parallel and perpendicular lines. The use of decimals and fractions is expanded as well.

        Social Studies takes a new turn in fourth grade, as students study the history of Texas from the time Native Americans inhabited the land until the twentieth century. We study the missions in San Antonio as well as the events that led to Texas independence.

Fourth grade Science focuses on patterns in nature. We investigate how land slowly changes due to erosion and weathering or how it can be quickly changed by a storm, fire or disaster. Students also study how humans and animals adapt to all these changes. We observe patterns in the weather and climate. Finally, our focus turns to patterns in space, such as the rotation of the planets and constellations.