Academic Year 2016-2017
Fourth Grade
Curriculum Overview
Like Viking traders westward-bound, fourth graders feel a new sense of adventure as they walk
into this school year. Their imagination has been kindled, and their curiosity for learning about
the world has been triggered in new and important ways. Empowered with the new vistas
acquired from long summer days, camps, and travels, fourth graders are ready to explore new
frontiers of knowledge and skills. The living, budding shoots of logical thinking and reasoning
are beginning to emerge, and objectivity is possible. The children begin to search for answers
in the rules of science, demanding more attention to scientific subjects. In the social and
emotional fields, many ten-year-old students continue to feel passionate storms of despair and
isolation against a backdrop of exuberant confidence in life and the forces of nature.
The Waldorf curriculum meets the ten-year-old student with methodology and content that
addresses the need for more science, mapping, and understanding of the reality of the world in
an exuberant and life-affirming way. The fracturing of the wholeness of childhood is reflected
in studies such as ‘The Norse Gods,’ whereby the ‘One true God’ of third grade Hebrew stories
is replaced by a crowded pluralist cosmology that defies simple theology. The whole number is
shattered into ‘fractions’. The smallest details hidden in the forms of animals are examined in
our block called ‘Man and Animal.’
Fourth grade is also a time to expand the children’s understanding of their own place in the
world, and so we take up the study of local geography and history. The fourth graders will
create individual maps of their classroom community, school community and neighborhoods,
surrounding towns and then, gradually, widen the scope to include the Connecticut river
valley of New England. Through this study, the children will come to realize that, at first, the
local landscape influenced how the first people (the Abenaki Indians) lived and how gradually
human activity now transforms the natural landscape.
Academic skills continue to expand in fourth grade. In language arts, fourth grade is an important
time to expand accuracy in the mechanics of writing, as well as organizational thinking skills.
The children will write in a variety of ways, as they make themselves comfortable with different
kinds of compositions and work at applying the grammar, spelling, and punctuation rules that
they learn. All kinds of writing will be practiced, with special attention spent on expository
and letter writing. The structure of the paragraph will be emphasized. These skills are practiced
each week, as well as during the main lesson blocks devoted to grammar and composition.
80 Bluff Road, PO Box 709, Quechee, Vermont tel: 802.296.2496 fax: 802.296.5075 [email protected] www.uvws.org
Academic Year 2016-2017
Additional focus will be on antonyms, homophones, synonyms, prefixes, and other ways of
expanding our language knowledge, such as dictionary use. The fourth graders will work with class
readers and individual book choices that will supplement the content of the curriculum. Reading
comprehension will be explored through conversation and written expression.
Three blocks, as well as two weekly practice periods, will be devoted to mathematics. Time will
be spent in reviewing and mastering previous skills—most importantly, the mastery of the times
tables. Skill-wise, there are two major goals for the fourth grade year: a firm sense for working with
whole numbers using the four processes and an understanding of the basic concepts, terminology,
and operations using common fractions. It is easy to recognize this year’s theme of separate-butrelated in the study of fractions. The whole is broken into parts, and yet the parts still relate to
the whole—and each other! The fourth graders will come to an understanding of the numerator,
denominator, factors, mixed numbers, and improper fractions and be able to apply the four
arithmetic processes to fractions.
In addition to the main lesson block work, the fourth graders will be challenged and enriched
through daily practice of seasonal songs, choral pieces, poetry, recorder pieces, and circle work
involving bean-bags, balls, and eurythmy rods.
Complex form drawings based on woven forms and Celtic knots will also be part of the weekly
schedule. The fourth graders will be introduced to the technique of weaving their form drawings.
We will approach this work with woven ropes and will practice many of the different nautical
weaves and knots before drawing them. Starting very simply, we will move quickly onto challenging
“knotted” and “braided” forms, many of which are based on stone carvings found in Ireland,
Scotland, and continental Europe. Especially challenging are the Norse and Celtic models that call
for clarity of focus and sustained attention in order to replicate.
Fourth graders will continue to work with beautiful paper and high-quality watercolors to create
color wheels and compositions from our studies in zoology, mythology, and geography. Field trips
will be planned to complement and deepen our classroom work.
80 Bluff Road, PO Box 709, Quechee, Vermont tel: 802.296.2496 fax: 802.296.5075 [email protected] www.uvws.org
Academic Year 2016-2017
Fourth Grade
Block Plan
Norse Myths August 30 - September 16
We will begin with the Norse myth of the creation of the world and wind our way through Asgard and
descriptions of the Gods, half-gods, giants, dwarves and elves and “the world tree” Yggdrisil. Stories of
tricks, tests, riddles and heroic deeds force a new kind of thinking that the fourth graders can relate to.
Local Geography
September 19 - October 14
To navigate our fourth grade journey and adventures this year, we will begin with the beginning. As we
heard the creation story in third grade and recently the Norse myths creation story, we will hear stories
that describe the creation of our local landscape of Vermont and New Hampshire: how the mountains,
valleys, rivers, and lakes were formed. The children will hear legends of the Native Americans indigenous
to our region and will also be introduced to the art of making maps. This will begin with our immediate
environment, the classroom, and expand to include the school, the town of Quechee, the greater Upper
Valley, and our state of Vermont. Additionally, we will explore our local geography by leaving our
UVWS campus and visiting regional places of significance.
Arithmetic
October 17 - November 4
We will conduct a thorough review of the arithmetic work that the class has done over the past three
years: the four operations, place value, estimating, long division, and long multiplication with single
and double digits. This review will help us to prepare for our fractions work. We will renew our efforts
to memorize multiplication tables by searching for patterns in numbers and be introduced to factors.
We will review measurement concepts and solve many word problems. The end of the block will be an
introduction to fractions.
Language Arts
November 7- November 18
During this block we will review parts of speech and different types of sentences. We will broaden our
understanding of the parts of speech to include seven parts, with an introduction to tenses.
Form Drawing
November 21 - November 22
These two days will be focused on working with the complex weaving forms and inventing our own
designs.
80 Bluff Road, PO Box 709, Quechee, Vermont tel: 802.296.2496 fax: 802.296.5075 [email protected] www.uvws.org
Academic Year 2016-2017
Humans & Animal
November 28 - December 22
In this block, an introduction to Comparative Zoology, we will develop the critical thinking
skills of the child through a methodology that compares and contrasts the external human form
with animal forms throughout the animal kingdom as a whole. The children will be working
out of a concept known as “threefold physiology,” which seeks to understand the organization
of the physical form from three points of view—head, trunk, and limbs. In every detail, how
are we truly different from animals? What would it be like to be specialized in only one way,
i.e., the fish as swimmer or the ape as climber? Zoology is the first formal science block in the
Waldorf curriculum. From kindergarten through third grade, the children were introduced to
natural phenomena through their own explorations, “nature stories” and fairy tales, and through
poetry and imaginative pictures. The ten-year old is seriously interested and curious to learn more
scientific facts about the world and demands a new degree of objectivity in the learning process.
We begin in fourth grade with the animal world, followed by the study of botany in fifth grade,
mineralogy in sixth grade and laboratory sciences in middle school.
Norse Myths - Language Arts January 9 - January 27
Loki, the rascally trickster, becomes more and more antagonistic toward the Aesir. All the while,
Ragnarok (the end of the world) is looming. The children will anticipate the end along with the
gods. We will continue to hone our writing skills with prose descriptions and drawings from the
content of the stories. We will also continue our work with paragraphing, verb tense, and focus on
reading comprehension.
Arithmetic - Fractions January 30 - February 17
Our math block will focus almost entirely on fractions. We will work with skills such as factoring,
reducing fractions, mixed numbers, and improper fractions. The children will also learn how to
apply the four arithmetic processes to proper fractions.
Lanugauge Arts
February 27 - March 3
Writing will be our focus during this final Language Arts block. Not only will our written prose
be expository, but we will explore other writing such as formal and informal letter writing. In
addition, we will begin to work on our class play.
Humans & Animal
March 10- March 24
Our second zoology block, a continuation of Comparative Zoology, will take the children further
into the study of archetypal animals. Each animal represents a different part of the human being’s
system: the cow is the epitome of digestion, the lion demonstrates a strong respiratory system, and
the eagle has acute vision and sensory intake. This block will also continue to incorporate guided
instruction in expository writing. lay
80 Bluff Road, PO Box 709, Quechee, Vermont tel: 802.296.2496 fax: 802.296.5075 [email protected] www.uvws.org
Academic Year 2016-2017
Local History & Geography March 27- April 14
We will turn our gaze to the mountains and rivers of Vermont and New Hampshire to study
the physical geography, natural resources, and history of our twin states. Then we will study the
migration of the first permanent European settlers. We will hear stories illustrating aspects of 19th
century immigration and production, the labor movement, the arrival of the railroad, merino
sheep and woolen mills, granite, marble and timber. An overnight trip will be at the conclusion
of this block.
Arithmetic - Fractions April 24 - May 26
Our third math block will be a continuation of our study of fractions. Repeated exposure to new
terminology such as lowest common denominator, reciprocals, factors, and products, lowest term,
expanding, and reducing will build a strong foundation for the years to come.
Review May 29 - June 2
Once again the students will bind their own books and create their final portfolios showing
selections of their final edited work throughout the year. We will review skills gained in fourth
grade and make plans for summer reading.
*Note: Adjustments may need to be made to the curriculum order as the year progresses.
80 Bluff Road, PO Box 709, Quechee, Vermont tel: 802.296.2496 fax: 802.296.5075 [email protected] www.uvws.org