students to work one-on-one or in small groups with the teacher for guided reading. The students also utilize the Writer's Workshop model developed by The Teacher's College at Columbia University. The workshop model provides time for a mini-lesson, guided practice, independent active engagement, and collaboration/reflection . MATHEMATICS Levine Academy’s Beck Lower School has adopted the Everyday Math Fourth Edition program. This comprehensive program teaches basic math skills in a real world context, encouraging learners to think conceptually and mathematically. Students are encouraged to reason through problems and engage themselves in a wide variety of math related activities. The curriculum includes diverse concepts such as computation, algebraic function, decimals, fractions, and geometry. The program itself provides opportunities for differentiation at every level while still teaching within the range of one concept or skill. SOCIAL STUDIES The main focus in Social Studies for Fourth Grade is Texas. We examine the history of Texas from the early beginnings to the present while discussing important issues, events, and individuals. Units range from basic geography and map identifications to the Texas Revolution and impact of expansion. Levine uses Mind Missions lessons to integrate Social Studies with Language Arts and STEAM challenges for engaged learning. STEM Fourth Grade student scientists are able to use a model of waves to describe patterns of waves in terms of amplitude and wavelength, and that waves can cause objects to move. Students are guided to develop mastery understanding of the effects of weathering or the rate of erosion by water, ice, wind, or vegetation. In order to describe patterns of the Earth’s features, students analyze and interpret data from maps. Fourth Graders activate schema from second grade to develop a deeper understanding that plants and animals have internal and external structures that function to support survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction. Students are able to use evidence to construct an explanation of the relationship between the speed of an object and the energy of that object. Students develop an understanding that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents or from object to object through collisions. They apply their understanding of energy to design, test, and refine a device that converts energy from one form to another. The crosscutting concepts of patterns; cause and effect; energy and matter; systems and system models; interdependence of science, engineering, and technology; and influence of engineering, technology, and science on society and the natural world are called out as organizing concepts for these disciplinary core ideas. JEWISH STUDIES/HEBREW Granite Ivrit is an exciting and innovative new Hebrew program for schools based on the Proficiency approach, the Communicative Language Teaching approach, and the ACTFL benchmarks. This program is offered to students who acquired the skills of reading and writing, and are in Novice to Intermediate levels. Granite Ivrit focuses on the three modes of communication while providing students with the
ANN & NATE LEVINE ACADEMY
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