1. Welcome to Fantastic Fourth Grade 2017-2018
Helpful Information for You and Your Fourth Grader

2. Let Us Introduce Ourselves
ELA Instructional Team:
Mrs. Milam - Writing & Social Studies
Mrs. Powers - Writing & Social Studies
Mrs. Potts - Reading & Science
Mrs. Carnley - Reading & Science
Math Instructional Team
Mrs. Berry
Mrs. Smith

3. INDEPENDENT READING
MAKES A DIFFERENCE

4. Reading Workshop Mini-Lesson Independent Reading Teacher Read- Aloud
Reading Units of Study in 4th grade:
Launching Reader’s Workshop
Genre
Character, Plot and Main Idea
Questioning and Inferencing
Summarizing and Generalizing
Making Connections Between Texts
Research
Critical Thinking Strategies
Non-fiction/Expository Reading Strategies

5. Supporting your child at home…
Students are to read a minimum of 20 minutes daily.
Parents may read with your child, and we encourage you to talk to your child about what they have read.

6. Writing: Compositions
Compositions: We Focus on Personal Narrative and Expository Writing in 4th Grade. They are tested on Expository Writing. Students need to:
Plan a first draft that conveys the intended meaning by generating ideas through a variety of strategies (brainstorming, graphic organizers, etc).
Develop a draft by categorizing ideas and organizing them into detailed paragraphs.
Revise drafts for coherence, organization, use of simple/compound sentences and to clarify meaning by adding, deleting or rearranging ideas to maintain focus.
Edit drafts for grammar, mechanics, and spelling
Publish final draft in response to feedback from peers, teachers, and after analysis/evaluation of rubric.

7. Writing: Revise/Edit
Students need to be able to apply revising/editing strategies to evaluate the writing of others. They should:
Use and understand the function of the following parts of speech: verbs (helping, present tense, past tense, future tense), nouns (singular/plural, common/proper), adjectives, adverbs, correlative conjunctions, transition words phrases.
Use complete simple and compound sentences with correct subject/verb agreement.
Spell commonly used homophones (e.g., their, there, they’re; to, two, too).
Use prepositions and prepositional phrases to convey location, time, direction, or to provide details.
Establish clear central ideas or introductions and concluding statements.
Differentiate among fragments, run-on sentences, complete sentences and sentences that need to be combined.

8. Resources for Home Support
Writing:
chompchomp.com
readwritethink.org
writingfix.com
Reading:
readworks.com
studyzone.org

9. Math
In math, we will be working with group instruction and small group instruction.
Some of the topics that we will be teaching are:
Data - Place Value to the billions
2 x 2 Multiplication - Long Division
Decimals to the hundredths place
Fractions - Converting Measurement
Measuring Angles - Geometry
It is extremely important that your child knows his/her facts. They need to know addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts. This will help in every area of math.

10. Science Units of Study Safety Properties of Soil Scientific Process
Natural Resources
Properties of Matter
Life Cycle
Mixtures & Solutions
Inherited Traits/Learned Behavior
Forms of Energy
Adaptations
Force & Motion
Food Chains/Food Webs
Shadows, Seasons, Moon, Tides, Water Cycle
Promotional Ads/Research Scientists
Weather
Weathering/Erosion/Depo-sition

11. Social Studies-Texas History
In 4th grade Social Studies is all about Texas history. Topics we cover are:
Citizenship
Texas Government
Celebrate Freedom Week
Map Skills, Geography and Regions of Texas
Early Texans and Other Civilizations
European Explorers and Missions
Texas Colonization
The Texas Revolution and the Republic of Texas
Civil War and Reconstruction
Texas Cattle Kingdom

12. Communication/Agenda
Every day your child will bring home his or her agenda. Please check it for communication from us. Students will receive a note in the planner for behavior concerns. Please sign if there is a note from a teacher. We will be sending home a weekly Tuesday folder. In the folder you will find graded papers and any notes from the school or district. Please make sure the folder is signed and returned to school the next day. We will also send a monthly newsletter with our goals, important dates, items to bring, etc