This parent guide supports parents in helping their child at home with the 4th grade ELA content. Within the folder you will access Parent Guide PDFs in FIVE Languages: Arabic, English, Hindi, Spanish, and Vietnamese to help on-going communication with caregivers. 

As a way to support teachers with English Language Arts (ELA) instruction during the pandemic, the NCDPI ELA team created choice boards featuring standards-aligned ELA activities.The intended purpose of these choice boards is to provide a way for students to continue standards-based learning while schools are closed. Each activity can be adapted and modified to be completed with or without the use of digital tools. Many activities can also be repeated with different texts. These standards-based activities are meant to be a low-stress approach to reinforcing and enriching the skills learned during the 2019-2020 school year. The choice boards are to be used flexibly by teachers, parents, and students in order to meet the unique needs of each learner.Exploration activities are provided for a more self-directed or guided approach to independent learning for students. These activities and sites should be used as a way to explore concepts, topics, skills, and social and emotional competencies that interest the learner. 

Students select an endangered or threatened animal to research, locate it on a map, and create a persuasive essay or poster to convince others to help the animals.

The North Carolina Museum of Natural Science created this resource as part of an online workshop series, but you are welcome to use or modify it for your classroom. It includes a video and written directions for creating nature journals and tips for incorporating them into your classroom. For information on taking any the Nature Neighborhood online workshops for CEUs or EE credit, visit: https://naturalsciences.org/learn/educators/online-workshops.

In this lesson after viewing the video, students develop an informed opinion about which animal makes a better pet, cats or dogs. Students complete a T-chart and use information from the video to write an opinion paragraph. A rubric for assessment is included.

In this unit, students will explore their neighboring surroundings while learning about the natural resources that are available in their own backyard, as well as positive contributions they can make to minimize negative change in the environment. Furthermore, students will utilize technological resources to broaden their understanding on environmental changes, as well as human and animal adaptation. Additionally, they will gain knowledge through different literature resources during independent and shared reading.

In this lesson students will learn about the need to protect animals and to prevent extinction of animals. Students will then write an opinion piece on why it is important save animals. This lesson was developed by Tina Deal as part of their completion of the North Carolina Global Educator Digital Badge program. This lesson plan has been vetted at the local and state level for standards alignment, Global Education focus, and content accuracy.

Lesson 8 gives students the opportunity to express themselves after reading the fiction text, The Hundred Dresses, in lesson 7. If students were not able to read the story, they can still contribute their thoughts on the issue of childhood immigration and the impact it has in their school and community. They will discuss their opinions about what needs to improve and what they can do to improve or change the conditions. Students have had exposure to a wide variety of perspectives on the life of immigrants. They now have an awareness and have begun to develop strong opinions and feelings on the subject. With the creation of an immigration awareness brochure to share with classmates and/or their families, students become change agents in their part of the world and their school." This is a 1 hour lesson. This lesson was developed by Tsianina Tovar as part of their completion of the North Carolina Global Educator Digital Badge program. This lesson plan has been vetted at the local and state level for standards alignment, Global Education focus, and content accuracy.

Students are presented with an opportunity to investigate one of North Carolina's great mysteries, the Lost Colony of Roanoke. They are tasked with an application process to research various theories. Throughout the study/unit, students gain an understanding of a key event in their state's history. They are able to share and teach others about this mysterious event. They develop the understanding of looking for key details and clues to make connections with various theories, relating to the work of a CSI detective/forensic scientist.

This is a multi-day culminating activity based on unit 1 of the 4th grade Wonders curriculum. Students will work individually, or in partners, to brainstorm products or professions that they may be interested in pursuing. They will create a visual (Google Slide or poster) as well as a fact card that outlines the steps of creating/pursuing the chosen product or profession. Then, students will create a Flipgrid that would persuade investors to invest in their product or company. A rubric accompanies this activity so teachers have guidelines on how to assess student work.

Sstudents will write a letter to a newspaper editor about the abolition of slavery. This resource supports English language development for English language learners.

Students will read a description of a conclusion, a prompt, a template, and a checklist. The students wil then write in order to complete the template and respond to the checklist questions. This resource supports English language development for English language learners.

Students will read a prompt and write a response about saving water or electricity. Students will then draw a picture to accompany their writing. This resource supports English language development for English language learners.

Students will read a prompt that includes probing questions in order to write an essay about the meaning of freedom. This resource supports English language development for English language learners.

Students will read a description and examples of thesis sentences. Students will then read various topics and write a thesis sentence for each topic. This resource supports English language development for English language learners.

Students will use stream tables to create a landslide and explain why erosion changes the land on mountaintops.

The NC Kids' Exploration Journals are a fun educational tool to help youth explore their communities and natural surroundings! Each journal contains: 18 multidisciplinary activities with guided prompts, 6 lined journal pages for recording observations and reflections, and 4 blank pages for individual creativity.

The digital versions of the journal are designed to be printed out for students either as individual activities or in its entirety so that they can explore their school yard, local park, or own backyard. Though designed for 1st - 5th-graders, older audiences may enjoy them too! They are also available in both English and Spanish languages.

While supplies last, hard copies of the journals are currently available for free to teachers by contacting karen.ipock@ncdcr.gov.

So many animals need a home! Students will visit the Humane Society’s Adoptable Animals page to pick an animal they’d like to see get a forever home. Students will use ChatterPix an iOS app and the power of persuasion to animate a photograph of an animal in need of adoption. There are several alternatives for those who don't have iPads in the classroom.

Inclusion is an important concept in that it promotes equity and equality in the classroom. Students learn to work together despite their differences, capitalizing on their strengths and minimizing their deficits. Students within the school will be educated about the importance of inclusion, collaborating to complete activities and advocating for a school-wide inclusion program that involves all students, teachers and administrators.

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 4th Grade English Language Arts.