Welcome to Mrs. Higdon’s!
Grades 3 & 4 Curriculum
Religion
Textbook: Spirit of Truth, School Edition
Third and Fourth Grade
Math
Textbook: Sadler- Oxford: Progress In Math
Third Grade: In third grade students continue to focus on place value, number operations, statistics & probability, and geometry. We’re focused on sharpening our problem solving skills and thinking critically about math concepts and skills.
4th Grade: In fourth grade students continue to focus on place value, basic number operations, statistics & probability, geometry, fractions, and long division. We’re continually sharpening our problem solving skills and thinking critically about math concepts and skills.
Science
Textbook: Mystery Science
Our science program is all hands-on. It includes explorations and activities that go along with the exploration. Students focus on a variety of scientific topics. Some of the topics covered include animal survival & heredity, plant life cycles & heredity, weather & climate, and forces.
Handwriting
Textbook: Universal Publishing: Writing Our Catholic Faith
Students continue to polish their cursive writing skills in grade 3/4.Generally fourth grade students begin writing all their assignments incursive. Third graders start using cursive writing in their daily work when students return from the Christmas break.
English Language Arts
Textbook: Heggerty: Bridge to Reading/Heggerty: Bridge to Writing
Third and fourth grades have separate textbooks.
BRIDGE TO READING:
Students will use the Science of Reading to decode and encode words. Students will focus on advanced foundational skills, move from basic phonemic awareness to complex decoding, prefixes/suffixes, and fluency to build reading comprehension. Key standards addressed include applying phonics for decoding, building word knowledge through affixes, developing fluency (accuracy, rate, prosody), and using text-specific vocabulary to comprehend complex texts.
To ensure reading comprehension and monitor progress, students utilize the Accelerated Reader platform to complete formal assessments on their independent reading selections.
BRIDGE TO WRITING:
Students will develop poetry, narrative, informative, and opinion writing through paragraph development and integrating grammar, syntax, and writing process instruction into daily lessons. Students follow a systematic approach to independent writing, which includes prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. The Heggerty Bridge to Writing curriculum utilizes the Explicit Instruction model, a gradual release of responsibility where the teacher first models a specific writing skill (I Do), then guides the class through a collaborative practice session (We Do), and finally allows the student to demonstrate mastery through independent applications (You Do).
Social Studies
Textbook: Regions: Adventures in Time and Place
Students learn about the different regions in the United States. There are two chapters devoted to each region. The first chapter focuses on the region’s environment. The second chapter focuses on the people and heritage in that specific region.
