Grades 3-4

Students write narrative, opinion, informational, and fairy tale pieces using the writing process of drafting, revising, editing, and celebrating their work through peer conferences and sharing their final product with others. Later in the year, 3rd grade students persuade an audience about causes they believe in through persuasive essays. In grammar, students study the parts of speech; plural and singular nouns; pronouns; past, present, and future verb tenses; adjectives; adverbs; prepositions; sentence types; and capitalization. Students continue to grow as readers by learning more about who they are as a reader and building a reading life.  They continue reading to learn with a focus on main ideas and text structures.  They also participate in character studies, partner reading, improving expression, and summarizing what they have read.  Vocabulary and spelling skills are explicitly taught and facilitate students’ understanding and use of new spelling patterns and vocabulary terms.

Students in grades 3 - 5 use the library and the literacy specialist in an academically rigorous way as an extension of their reading and writing classroom. When our oldest Sharks visit the library in small groups, they are coached through 1:1 reading and writing conferences. They are guided and supported through their projects, reading decision-making, writing pieces, research, and whatever literacy skills they are practicing! This creates yet another environment on campus where students have a strong connection with a trusted adult who has known them for years.

The 4th grade Global Studies curriculum engages students as geographers, historians, anthropologists, and economists as they study American history through the lens of “liberty and justice for all”. They begin the year examining the Bill of Rights and America’s constitution. They then re-examine those concepts as they study emancipation, the suffragist movement, the industrial revolution, World War II and the Civil Rights movement. 

In writing, students begin the year by creating characters that have struggles and motivations and learn to stretch out the “heart” of their stories. After this, they write personal, persuasive, and literary essays. The reading program compliments students’ writing as they participate in student-led discussions to analyze a genre’s structure and craft. Students’ comprehension skills are enhanced through comparing, contrasting, annotating, and analyzing character development, themes, and an author’s purpose. Grammatical concepts such as parts of a sentence, capitalization, and punctuation are reviewed and applied as students revise and edit their work during Writing Workshop. The study of Greek and Latin roots further enhance the language arts program. 

Students in grades 3 - 5 use the library and the literacy specialist in an academically rigorous way as an extension of their reading and writing classroom. When our oldest Sharks visit the library in small groups, they are coached through 1:1 reading and writing conferences. They are guided and supported through their projects, reading decision-making, writing pieces, research, and whatever literacy skills they are practicing! This creates yet another environment on campus where students have a strong connection with a trusted adult who has known them for years.

Fourth grade students develop their vocabulary and understanding of the world as they research Spanish ancient civilizations like the Aztecs, the Mayas and the Incas. Students also participate in simulations to practice conversational skills during cooperative learning activities, during an interactive unit on the Food. Throughout the year, they expand on their knowledge of adjective/noun agreement, gender and number of nouns, and simple sentence development through games and skits.

Students learn internet safety techniques, internet research skills, TinkerCAD (3D design and printing), iMovie, Google Slides, Google Docs, Notability, Showbie, various iPad apps, EV3 Lego Robotics (building and programming on a computer), Little Bits circuits, and video production complete with a green screen. Lessons build on concepts learned in social studies, science, Spanish and art courses as students utilize technology to extend learning.