This parent guide supports parents in helping their child at home with the 4th grade Science content.

This resource accompanies our Rethink 4th Grade Science course. It includes ideas for use, ways to support exceptional children, ways to extend learning, digital resources and tools, tips for supporting English Language Learners and students with visual and hearing impairments. There are also ideas for offline learning. 

In this lesson, students observe demonstrations and participate in hands-on activities that involve static electricity. Connections to everyday examples of static electricity and assessment ideas are included. Extension activities integrate Language Arts and family.

Working with a teacher, students will recreate some of the electrical experiments originally performed by Benjamin Franklin between 1746 and 1754. These hands-on experiments highlight Franklin's innovative contributions to science and government. Visitors will experience static electricity and may receive an exciting but harmless electric shock.

In this lesson students will understand how charges attract and repel and can move between objects by charging a variety of objects and making observations about their interactions.

This scientific article provides an overview over static electricty. It starts with the discovery of static electricity and the ethymology of the word "electron." Then two different experiments are explained based on static electricity. In the last part the article explains the phenomenon on a molecular level. The text is written for native speakers age 9 and up.

In this lesson, students use balloons, plastic bags, and glass and metal rods to investigate static electricity and then write complete a series of writing assignments to describe what they have learned.

In this lesson, students engineer a circuit and explain how energy is passed from one source to another.

In this lesson, students learn how to create electromagnets using batteries, copper wire, metal (nail), and paper clips. Students will then identify what objects are attracted to magnets, and how this attraction works.

In this lesson, students are introduced to the many forms of energy. Energy station materials are explored and discussed to introduce and clarify characteristics of each form of energy.

In this activity, students will investigate and better understand the power of static electricity by using an electrically charged comb to attract things including paper, ping pong balls, and water.

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

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

In this activity, students make a wire spin about a magnet using the interactions of magnetism and electric current.

In this lesson, students will use common materials (ring-shaped cereal, thread, a wire clothes hanger, plastic comb, piece of wool, foam cup, and a large nail) to demonstrate how electrical charges attract and repel.

In this hands-on experiment, students will test the effects of static charge on different objects such as paper, yarn, sawdust and puffed rice. They record their findings on a data sheet and hold a class discussion to share results. Extension activities and web links are included.

In this lesson, students rotate to three learning stations that will give them opportunities to experiment with static electricity. An extension activity and family connection are included.