Lower School - Fourth Grade Mathematics

Fourth Grade Everyday Mathematics emphasizes the following content strands:

Numeration – Reading, writing, and comparing whole numbers through millions, decimals through thousandths, negative numbers to -20, and fractions; understanding relations between fractions, decimals, and percents; locating fractions and mixed numbers on a number line; generating equivalent fractions.

Operations and Computation – Using paper-and-pencil algorithms to add, subtract, multiply, and divide multi-digit whole numbers and decimals; using mental arithmetic to compute exact answers and to estimate; rounding from millions to hundredths; modeling multiplication with arrays and area; doing operations with fractions.

Data and Chance – Creating, reading, and interpreting graphs, identifying landmarks in data sets, including range, median, mode, and mean; listing all possible outcomes in simple situations; using fractions to quantify probabilities; using experimental results to make predictions.

Geometry – Locating points on a coordinate grid; drawing and measuring angles; classifying angles as acute, obtuse, or right; classifying lines as parallel, intersecting, or perpendicular; recognizing and using transformations, including reflections and rotations; understanding the relationship between reflections and lines of symmetry; building 3-dimensional shapes; describing, comparing, and analyzing 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional figures.

Measurement and Reference Frames – Using tools to measure length, area, volume, weight, temperature and time; developing personal references for inches, centimeters, feet, meters, and yards; estimating lengths and weights; finding area and perimeters of rectangles, parallelograms, and triangles; finding volumes of rectangular prisms by counting cubic units; calculating elapsed time; using correct units in all measurements; calculating distances using map scales.

Patterns, Functions, and Algebra – Using letters and other symbols for unknowns; simplifying expressions containing parentheses; creating, extending, and describing patterns; using formulas for finding the area of simple geometric figures; determining rules that relate numbers in pairs; finding missing numbers in tables; translating among verbal, numerical, and graphical representations; understanding and writing number models for number stories.

Within these content strands, Everyday Mathematics emphasizes:

• A problem-solving approach based on everyday situations that develops critical thinking.

• Mathematical communication, including understanding and evaluating the mathematical thinking and strategies of others.

• Frequent practice of basic skills through ongoing program routines and mathematical games.

• An instructional approach that revisits topics regularly to ensure full concept development.

LEADERSHIP

Self awareness – Students must demonstrate and explain their own problem solving methods, they graph their individual progress on facts quizzes, they set individual math goals

Academic – Students must explain their thinking orally and in writing

Coaching (mentoring) – Frequent games, partnerships, and working with Falcon Friends

Reading – Each unit begins with a literature selection which encourages students to find a mathematical connection. (The Math Curse)

Adversity/Challenges/Opportunities – Timed facts quizzes, Dailey math messages

Leadership Observation – The class studies the mathematical thinkers who are represented among the Leader Portraits (Albert Einstein)

Experience Leadership/ Community Service – The fourth grade involves the entire community by collecting data and graphing it. Field trips to museums and the Maryland Science Center provide students with the opportunity to observe math in many different contexts.