Fourth Grade Curriculum Guide
FOURTH GRADE AT THE ORCHARD SCHOOL
Science
In fourth grade science at Orchard, the focus is on designing experiments, recognizing and identifying criteria and constraints of solving a problem, building models, collaborative thinking, and experiential discovery. During class students explore a variety of units using universal skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking, and engineering design.
Fourth graders will grow as scientists by:
• Using the scientific method to test hypotheses and discover the world around them. • Creating and using models to explain the natural world. • Making observations and measurements. • Planning investigations. • Collecting, organizing, and interpreting data. • Evaluate and modify potential solutions. • Describe criteria and constraints including quantifications. • Support claims using evidence and reasoning.
Topics of study
• Structures and processes: How do internal and external structures support the survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction of plants and animals? • Earth’s place in the universe : How can water, ice, wind and vegetation change the land? • Earth’s systems: What patterns of Earth’s features can be determined with the use of maps? • Earth and Human Activity: Apply knowledge of natural Earth processes to generate and compare multiple solutions to reduce the impacts of such processes on humans. • Energy: What is energy and how is it related to motion? How is energy transferred? How can energy be used to solve a problem? • Waves and their applications in technologies for information transfer: What are waves and what are some things they can do? • Engineering design: Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.
¡Hola!
Spanish
In fourth grade at The Orchard School, students learning Spanish continue to benefit from repetition of games, songs, lesson activities, and stories. By spiraling previously learned routines into subsequent lessons, students are excited to apply new vocabulary and concepts. Five minute focus activities reconnect them with the previous lesson target and set them up for success with the new target. Outdoor Education is integrated with project-based learning, and Spanish language is an integral part of the class culture. Indiana World Language standards are incorporated in thematic units that reinforce an understanding of our differences by relating to the central question, “What are the experiences that make us human?”
THE ORCHARD SCHOOL
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