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Grade Four – How to Help Your Child at Home

Art

  • Set aside an area for artwork to be done.
  • Provide a variety of tools and materials for your child to use, such as colored pencils, yarn, crayons, water-based markers, fabric scraps, tissue paper, weaving and stitchery supplies, blunt-tipped scissors, paper, and glue. Encourage your child to experiment with new art forms such as fabric dying, papermaking, and sculptures that move.
  • Praise and display your child’s work in special places.
  • Work with your child to make drawings from observation, imagination, and memory.
  • Encourage your child to make artwork often that can be shared with family and friends.
  • Visit galleries and museums and discuss with your child the similarities and differences between other cultures and your own.
  • Visit the library and take a look at books that picture master artworks with objects that are familiar in the child’s world.
  • Encourage your child to use similar compositions and themes as he/she develops his/her own works of art.

Instructional Technology

  • Help your child identify the uses of technology in everyday life, such as bar code readers at the grocery store, automatic teller machines, smart phones, tablets, and computerized gas pumps.
  • Help your child use software programs appropriate for Grade 4, such as Microsoft Office, Pixie, Type to Learn, Kidspiration, and Google Apps for Education (GAFE).
  • Practice computer skills with your child at home or at the library.
  • Visit appropriate websites to help support classroom instruction.

Health

  • Help your child make healthy food choices by reading food labels together.
  • Develop a plan for what to do in medical emergencies and for minor injuries.
  • Practice ways to safely resolve conflicts with others.
  • Discuss ways to prevent all types of child abuse.
  • Assist your child in managing physical activity, diet, and rest to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
  • Discuss behaviors that put children at risk of contracting and spreading diseases.
  • Show compassion for people affected by disease.

Language arts/Library media

  • Read as often as possible with your child. Help your child use different ways to read unfamiliar words. When your child comes to an unfamiliar word say:
    • What would make sense in the sentence?
    • What parts of the word do you recognize?
    • Read to the end of the sentence and come back.
    • Think about what word would fit.
  • Talk about books before, during, and after reading. Predict what might happen. Think about the characters and events. Have your child discuss what the author did to make the book interesting to read.
  • Encourage your child to independently read at least 25 books annually.
  • Have spelling resources for your child to use at home (personal spelling journal, children’s dictionary).
  • Encourage your child to apply spelling strategies and patterns he or she has learned.
  • Provide an area for writing with materials and resources (pencils, pens, different kinds of paper, eraser).
  • Assist your child in planning and organizing ideas before beginning to write. Then help your child refer to the plan when writing. Offer suggestions about the ideas, details, and organization of the writing before correcting punctuation, spelling, and capitalization.
  • Assist your child when writing to include relevant information, details, and descriptive words.
  • Establish a routine at home for reading.
  • Read an action story or tale of adventure to replace an evening TV program.
  • Be a role model. Let your child see you read for pleasure.
  • Practice using the Big6 model for problem solving everyday life situations.
  • Obtain a library card for your child, and schedule regular family visits to the library.
  • Encourage your child to participate in age-appropriate activities sponsored by the public library.
  • Encourage your child to utilize online homework help provided by Howard County Library.
  • Look for computer programs that encourage reading.
  • The school system provides online resources to assist students (SIRS Discoverer, Culture Grams, and World Book Online). Check with the library media specialist at your school for access information.

Library Media

  • Establish a routine at home for reading.
  • Read an action story or tale of adventure to replace an evening TV program.
  • Be a role model. Let your child see you read for pleasure.
  • Practice using the Big6 model for problem solving everyday life situations.
  • Obtain a library card for your child and schedule regular family visits to the library.
  • Encourage your child to participate in age-appropriate activities sponsored by the public library.
  • Encourage your child to utilize online homework help provided by Howard County Library.
  • Look for computer programs that encourage reading.
  • The school system provides online resources to assist students (SIRS Discoverer, Culture Grams, and World Book Online). Check with the library media specialist at your school for access information.

Mathematics

  • Listen to your child explain how he or she solves math problems.
  • Help your child name and write numbers up to 1,000,000.
  • Practice addition and subtraction facts with your child.
  • Help your child memorize multiplication and division facts.
  • Help your child learn to multiply a four-digit by a one-digit number (2349 x 4).
  • Help your child learn elapsed time. (How much time has passed between 8:45 a.m. and 11:23 a.m.?)
  • Help your child learn to find the average of a set of numbers.
  • Find opportunities to do math every day.
  • Work on puzzles.
  • Explore mathematics in books that you read together.
  • Discuss the math that can be found in the media (new reports, newspaper articles, magazines).
  • Make mistakes a part of learning.

Music

  • Listen with your child to recordings of music by well-known composers. Discuss the times and life of the composer.
  • Encourage your child to participate in school chorus.
  • If your child expresses particular interest, allow him or her to take private lessons on an instrument and to elect instrumental music at school.
  • If your child expresses particular interest, provide opportunities for him or her to participate in outside musical groups, orchestras, community theater, and summer camps.
  • Encourage your child to create movements that illustrate recognition of the elements of music in familiar songs and recorded examples.
  • Ask your child to explain and demonstrate the music symbols used in the school music class.
  • Attend concerts by a local high school band, symphony orchestra, or other instrumental ensemble and discuss the grouping of instruments based on how sound is produced (brass, woodwind, strings, percussion).

Physical Education

  • Ask your child to perform a successful dribble using a basketball and soccer ball.
  • If possible, provide opportunities for your child to skate and ride a bike.
  • Have your child participate regularly in a physical activity to develop a healthy lifestyle.
  • Walk or jog with your child, if possible.

Science

  • Encourage your child to observe and describe the environment and discuss locations where humans have had a positive or negative effect on the environment. Work with your child to find ways they can have a positive effect on the environment.
  • Discuss ways to save energy in the home.
  • Have your child discuss ways to design an experiment to answer a question.
  • Read articles and books about space, planets, and stars with your child.
  • Read books about native plants in our area and plant a garden with native plants.
  • Encourage your child to observe organisms outdoors and discuss examples of producers (plants), consumers (animals and insects), and decomposers (bacteria, fungi).

Social Studies

  • Provide opportunities for your child to use maps to locate continents, oceans, and lines of latitude and longitude. Help your child read map symbols, use a compass rose, scale, and map key. Encourage your child to use maps, globes, and atlases to get information about the location and features of continents and countries.
  • Read books about the founding and settlement of Maryland.
  • Discuss with your child how the lifestyle, responsibilities, and rights of people living today compare with people living in other times.
  • Identify taxes paid by your family (sales tax, income taxes, property taxes).
  • Discuss the services in your community financed by taxes.
  • Discuss the importance of the Chesapeake Bay to the economy of Maryland (a way to trade with cities and countries, jobs, fishing, boating, source of food).
  • Visit Maryland historical sites, such as St. Mary’s City and Fort McHenry, to learn more about Maryland’s past.
  • Discuss daily financial decisions (budgeting, spending, saving, and investing).