Math:
Unit overview attached
Social Studies:
In this unit students learn about four disciplines that are the focus of social studies: history, geography, government, and economics. They explore the questions studied by these different social scientists about people and places. Students begin the unit by using a familiar context, Michigan and its people, to review the questions historians ask. They then expand their lenses to those of geographers, political scientists, and economists to examine the United States. By exploring the focus of each social studies discipline, students construct questions to guide their study of the United States throughout the year.
English Language Arts:
Essential Questions for Unit 1:
-
Where do good ideas come from?
-
How do your actions affect others?
-
How do people respond to natural disasters?
-
How can science help you understand how things work?
-
How can starting a business help others?
Comprehension Strategies for Unit 1:
Predictions, Sequence, Problem and Solution, Reread, Compare and Contrast, Cause and Effect, Main Idea and Details
Phonics for Unit 1:
Short Vowels, Long a, Inflectional Endings, Long e, Plurals, Long i, Long o, Compound Words,
Writing for Unit 1:
Personal Narrative
Science:
We will begin 4th grade science with a LEGO Education unit focused on simple machines. Students will learn about various simple machines and how to build each machine.
LEGO Education has a 4C approach to its curriculum: connect, construct, contemplate, and continue.
• In connect the students connect the LEGO Education stories and models to real-life experiences and surroundings.
• Construct allows students use building instructions in order to construct models covering the concepts related to the simple machine in focus.
• The contemplate stage involves students investigating the models they have constructed. Through these investigations, students will learn to observe and compare results from tests that they make, and to report on their observations.
• Continued learning is always more enjoyable and creative when it is sufficiently challenging. Extension ideas are therefore provided to encourage the students to change or add features to their models and to investigate further- always with the key learning area in mind.
