Elementary School Curriculum

3rd Grade Reading:

• Read for pleasure, read to get information, and read to support personal opinions.
• Read a wide variety of materials such as books, magazines, newspapers, lists, letters, personal stories, make-believe stories, factual information (non-fiction), and labels.
• React to poetry, informational, step-by-step, and story text, telling what was liked and what was not liked.
• Recommend books and other materials to friends.
• Make predictions about what happens next using text clues.
• Check self while reading independently using meaning clues, grammar clues, and phonic clues in text.
• Use strategies of reading ahead and review back to check and clarify meaning.
• Use synonyms.
• Summarize
• Know and use headings, subheadings, bold print, italics, and parentheses as help to understand what is read.
• Interpret poetry and know that stanza and verse are characteristics of poems.
• Tell main idea, lesson, or moral of fairy tales, tall tales, fables, legends, and myths.
• Know difference between fact and opinion.
• Tell cause and effect relationships.
• Tell likenesses and differences of characters, events, episodes, and/or stories.
• Tell likenesses and differences of poems, informational texts, and other types of materials read.
• Know simile (comparison using “like” or “as”) and metaphor (comparison which is implied) as figurative language.
• Know and use details.
• Read and understand maps, charts, diagrams, and graphs

Math:

Operations and Algebraic Thinking

• Represent and solve problems involving multiplication and division.
• Understand properties of multiplication and the relationship between multiplication and division.
• Multiply and divide within 100.
• Solve problems involving the four operations, and identify and explain patterns in arithmetic.

Number and Operations in Base Ten

• Use place value understanding and properties of operations to perform multi-digit arithmetic.

Number and Operations—Fractions

• Develop understanding of fractions as numbers.

Measurement and Data

• Solve problems involving measurement and estimation of intervals of time, liquid volumes, and masses of objects.
• Represent and interpret data.
• Geometric measurement: understand concepts of area and relate area to multiplication and to addition.
• Geometric measurement: recognize perimeter as an attribute of plane figures and distinguish between linear and area measures.

Geometry

• Reason with shapes and their attributes.

Mathematical Practices

• Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
• Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
• Model with mathematics.
• Use appropriate tools strategically.
• Attend to precision.
• Look for and make use of structure.
• Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning

3^rd/4^th Science:

Students will become scientifically literate citizens who develop and apply the skills of scientific inquiry by:

• Solving problems by applying scientific/mathematical reasoning
• Safely using the tools of science through active, hand on experiences
• Analyzing and synthesizing information and communication understanding of science concepts

Language Arts 3rd /4th

• Analyzing the impact of authors’ word choice and context.
• Examining the reasons for characters’ actions.
• Identifying and examining characters’ motives.
• Considering a situation or problem from different characters’ points of view.
• Analyzing differences among genres.
• making inferences and drawing conclusions about characters, events and themes

• Paraphrasing what was said.
• Interpreting speaker’s verbal and non-verbal messages.
• Interpreting speaker’s purposes and/or intent.

• Proofread and correct most misspellings independently with reference to resources
• (e.g., dictionaries, thesauri, glossaries, computer spell-checks, and other classroom
• Use correct capitalization (e.g., names of languages, nationalities,
• musical compositions) and punctuation (e.g., commas in a series, commas in direct address, commas and quotation marks in dialogue, apostrophes in possessives.
• Use oral and written language present information and ideas in a clear, concise manner.
• Discuss, solve problems and make decisions

Social Studies:

Describes how communities work to accomplish common tasks:

• Students will understand that a community’s established location is affected by a variety of factors.
• Students will understand that cultural diversity enhances a community.
• How do natural and economic resources effect the establishment of a community?
• How do climate and physical features affect the establishment of a community?
• What is cultural diversity and how does it contribute to a community’s identify?

Writing: 

• Write for extended periods of time.
• Use standard spelling most of the time.
• Use correct punctuation most of the time.
• Pre-write, using a drawing, brainstorming, webbing, or story boarding activity.
• Use paragraphs and concepts of order and time to organize information.
• Use the writing process: pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing.
• Proofread and edit writing to check spelling, punctuation, and grammar.
• Revise what is written by adding and/or deleting information to make it clear and understandable.
• Use a variety of sentences when writing (for example: dialogue, question, exclamation, and statement).
• Write personal and make-believe stories, each with a beginning, a middle, and ending.
• Know and understand that main idea, supporting detail, organization, and coherence are the criteria upon which the stories are scored.
• Write fairy tales, poetry, recipes, news articles, interviews, letters, notes, lists, and instructions.
• Write for pleasure, to respond to text, and to record learning.

Spelling

• Demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between letters and sounds.
• Use knowledge of structural analysis to decode words.
• Spell words correctly.
• Use spelling strategies to achieve accuracy (e.g., prediction, visualization, and association).

4^th Grade Reading:

• Read a variety of text including magazines, newspapers, recipes, charts, graphs, brochures, step-by-step instructions, nutrition labels, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and riddles.
• Tell his/her reaction to narratives, biographies, and autobiographies.
• Use reading as a major source of information.
• Offer reasons for how the story makes you feel.
• Use suffixes (ex: -ly, -er), prefixes (ex: pre-, tri-) and word parts to determine meanings of new words.
• Use a variety of strategies when reading to unlock meaning of the text (ex: predicting, confirming, self-correcting, and sampling).
• Change pace of reading according to the type of text read.
• Ask questions about text while reading.
• Tell in own words what a paragraph or passage is saying.
• Use reference materials: thesaurus, encyclopedia, dictionary, atlas, and Internet to get information.
• Use books and other materials to get information.
• Talk about themes of stories as related to self and others.
• Make assumptions and draw conclusions based on factual information and stories read.
• Know the characteristics of narrative text, both personal and imaginative (make-believe).
• Ask questions to determine point of view of text.
• Organize information using graphic organizers or outline.
• Talk about characters in text and determine possible motives.
• Know that authors and illustrators have different voices and styles.
• Follow written instructions.

4^th Math

Operations and Algebraic Thinking

• Use the four operations with whole numbers to solve problems.
• Gain familiarity with factors and multiples.
• Generate and analyze patterns.

Number and Operations in Base Ten

• Generalize place value understanding for multi-digit whole numbers.
• Use place value understanding and properties of operations to perform multi-digit arithmetic.

Number and Operations—Fractions

• Extend understanding of fraction equivalence and ordering.
• Build fractions from unit fractions by applying and extending previous understandings of operations on whole numbers.
• Understand decimal notation for fractions, and compare decimal fractions.

Measurement and Data

• Solve problems involving measurement and conversion of measurements from a larger unit to a smaller unit.
• Represent and interpret data.
• Geometric measurement: understand concepts of angle and measure angles.

Geometry

• Draw and identify lines and angles, and classify shapes by properties of their lines and angles.

Mathematical Practices

• Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
• Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
• Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
• Model with mathematics.
• Use appropriate tools strategically.
• Attend to precision.
• Look for and make use of structure.
• Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning