Right from the start, each member of our 4-5 team begins thinking, planning, and reflecting about how to construct a positive learning and social environment within our community. Our opening and closing periods provide us time to come together to establish and work toward common goals. We share our opinions with each other, we listen to the stories of peers, we inspire each other by proudly sharing our passions within the group. Our homeroom time allows us to celebrate our failures and our successes, using each of those scenarios as growth opportunities. As the year continues, the time we make for each other will only become more valuable as we will know each other better. We’ll move forward in providing constructive means to make our learning even more meaningful and more personal, and search for means to support one another in reaching those goals.
Students in the 4-5 work in mixed-grade groupings for language arts, social studies, and while in homeroom. They are grouped by grade level for math, science, and specials. Throughout the eight-day rotation of their schedule, students have the opportunity to work with a vast number of peers and adults within a combination of collaborative and independent settings. In addition to that, both formal and informal activities allow for interactions between children of broader age spans, both in and out of the classroom. These include all-school activities, lower school assembly, after school sports teams, choice times, buddy reading times with younger children, lunch in the dining room and recess times.
SOCIAL STUDIES This year, the 4-5 is implementing a new social studies curriculum, revolving around a comparative study between modern and ancient Japan. We introduce the year with a study of geography, beginning with general map skills and concepts. We will deeply explore the question, “What are maps and why do we use them?” Our goal is that students gain an understanding of the types and purposes of maps and the basic spatial relationships and scale of land masses and bodies of water.
From there we will be able to jump into the unique archipelago that is Japan, paying close attention to how being a nation of islands with very tall, mainly uninhabitable mountains has shaped Japanese civilization over time. Our study will progress naturally into a look at human geography.
How do people choose where they live?
What types of houses do they build?
How do they produce their food?
How do these factors help shape family structures, religion, culture, and international relations?
We will spend time immersing ourselves in Japanese traditions, with studies into festivals and holidays, cooking, religious customs, language, and the Japanese school systems.
The long months of winter will afford us time to look closely at Japanese history, again turning to geography to help us understand how ancient Japanese civilization took shape and how it transformed into the innovative, technologically and economically competitive power it is today.
Throughout the year, social studies learning will be enhanced by field trips, special visitors, hands-on projects, and integrated studies with drama, music, Spanish, and art. We will look at Japanese story-telling, haiku and anime. Students will have the opportunity to work in small groups on focused extensions of our whole-class instruction, and explore individual interests around our topics.
In the final months of school, students will be responsible for independent research projects. These projects will be presented to fellow classmates, parents, and the school community. We will celebrate our learning with a culminating end-of-year event, which will grow out of our work together and rooted in the essential understandings we have gained.
LANGUAGE ARTS
Within language arts, we will be studying, learning, and growing within a workshop model. Reader’s and writer’s workshops aim to create independent readers and writers. It is a lofty goal, but a worthy one. We will pursue that goal while working within the approximations of each student. Keystones of our time together include the ability to choose appropriate books for themselves, foster an appreciation of reading as both an interest and a tool, and learning how to “live as a writer.” - What it looks like:
Instructional focus mini-lesson
based on learning goals of unit
5-15 minutes in duration
Workshop happenings
small group instruction
individual conferences
independent work
Sharing time
honoring the growth and learning of others
demonstrating pride in our own work
getting excited about what we do
inspiring others to an unknown possibility
On top of the workshop model, we’ll also be working within units of study. These are focused experiences where specific genres might be studied with a handful of writer’s craft elements being explored and experimented with. Reading units of study may also look at specific genres. In addition to that, readers might work to strengthen targeted reading strategies, or enhance their abilities to synthesize and communicate what they have read. This will happen through a balanced-literacy approach, where students will learn through interactive read-alouds, guided reading groups, and literature circles. Word work and language usage are often addressed in small group or individual settings based on the individual learner. It is recognized and improved upon in pieces of work that are important and relevant to their development. Patterns, structures, and relationships will be used from words that students know and applied to the unfamiliar. When examining language usage, it will be a common practice to “stand on the shoulders of other authors” through the use of mentor texts to discover new things and expand what we already know.
MATHEMATICS
Developing mathematical thinking in young people is an incredibly intentional endeavor. Everything from the smallest language usage choice, to the attitude expressed by role models, to the specific timing of when they are introduced to skills and processes can have a profound impact on the development of a learner. It’s with excitement that we enter these years ready to rectify misconceptions, build conceptual understandings of processes we may be familiar with, transfer knowledge into settings where it can be applied, analyze the thinking of others, and strive to grow in our ability to communicate mathematically.
Within our math program, we value a balanced approach to learning in regards to math content and math processes. Without content, a math process lacks the grounding in mathematical knowledge that should accompany it. Understanding content, but being unable to apply it to process it, results in content knowledge that has little practical value. In an effort to facilitate deep learning, students will construct knowledge using a model that moves them from the concrete, to the abstract, and then on to application. The best practices of formative and summative assessments are blended together to not only provide measurement "of" learning, but also "for" learning.
Math Content
Math Processes
Numbers & Operations
Problem-solving
Algebra & Patterns
Reasoning
Geometry
Connections
Measurement
Communication & Representation
Data Analysis
SCIENCE
Systems Theme: Understanding how the parts of a system relate helps us to understand the whole. Thinking like a scientist; observing, questioning, testing, organizing, data collection, making inferences, communicating, and participating in citizen scientist projects
Fourth and fifth grade students attend science class in a science lab where class activities are designed to increase scientific literacy and skills. Students are challenged to form specific and testable questions, make predictions, observe and record results, and interpret the data to reach a conclusion. Units of study are integrated among life, physical and earth sciences, including topics such as the human body, earth minerals and rocks, magnetism and electricity, and the power of force and motion. When possible, science activities are connected to the year’s humanities theme, for example through observation, modeling and measuring activities surrounding seasons, we can hone our science skills and develop our understanding that modern science continues to evolve as new evidence is uncovered. As we support development of scientific literacy, we also support general literacy and math literacy through the use of developmentally appropriate topical readings, use of science notebooks for writing and data collection, analysis of numerical information. Students work in collaborative groupings for field work, problem solving activities and discussions.
4-5 Year One
Nature of Science
Human Body Systems
Rock Cycle – A Dynamic Earth System
Forces and Motion -Engineering Systems
4-5 Year Two
Nature of Science
Sun, Moon, Earth System
Electricity and Magnetism Systems
Design Technology – Inventive Thinking and “How it Works” the abstract, and then to the application, all while encouraging reflection and reasoning. Assessment in 4-5 balances t
