In this 20-day module students explore area as an attribute of two-dimensional figures and relate it to their prior understandings of multiplication. Students conceptualize area as the amount of two-dimensional surface that is contained within a plane figure.  They come to understand that the space can be tiled with unit squares without gaps or overlaps.  They make predictions and explore which rectangles cover the most area when the side lengths differ.  Students progress from using square tile manipulatives to drawing their own area models and manipulate rectangular arrays to concretely demonstrate the arithmetic properties. The module culminates with students designing a simple floor plan that conforms to given area specifications.

This 10-day module builds on Grade 2 concepts about data, graphing, and line plots. The two topics in this module focus on generating and analyzing categorical and measurement data.  By the end of the module, students are working with a mixture of scaled picture graphs, bar graphs, and line plots to problem solve using both categorical and measurement data.

This 40-day final module of the year offers students intensive practice with word problems, as well as hands-on investigation experiences with geometry and perimeter.  The module begins with solving one- and two-step word problems based on a variety of topics studied throughout the year, using all four operations.  Next students explore geometry.  Students tessellate to bridge geometry experience with the study of perimeter.  Line plots, familiar from Module 6, help students draw conclusions about perimeter and area measurements.  Students solve word problems involving area and perimeter using all four operations.  The module concludes with a set of engaging lessons that briefly review the fundamental Grade 3 concepts of fractions, multiplication, and division.

Module 1A focuses on building community by making connections between visual imagery, oral accounts, poetry and written texts of various cultures with a focus on the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) culture. Students will determine a central idea and demonstrate how gathering information from a variety of sources can help us understand a central idea more fully.| Module 1 also reinforces reading fluency, close text analysis, explanatory paragraph writing, and presenting to peers. The module reinforces the fact that Native Americans—specifically the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee, People of the Longhouse) —were early inhabitants of the New York region and state, and continue to contribute to the region’s history.

In this eight-week module, students will learn about poetry and poets through close reading and writing to learn. Throughout the module, they will determine the characteristics of poetry and consider what inspires writers and poets. Students begin in Unit 1 by reading the first half of the novel Love That Dog by Sharon Creech. Students follow the main character, Jack, as he learns about poetry and begins to write his own. Students closely read and analyze poems Jack reads, including “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowing Evening” by Robert Frost. Throughout this unit, students track what Jack is learning about poetry alongside their own learning though these close readings. They also experiment with writing their own poetry inspired by their reading. Students practice summarizing the events in the novel and discuss how the main character’s attitude toward poetry begins to change in this half of the novel. In Unit 2, students engage in deeper analysis of Jack’s character and his inspiration through extended discussion prompts. They also learn to write informational paragraphs in order to summarize larger portions of the text. For the mid-unit 2 assessment, they write a summary of the entire novel.

Students learn about what life was like in Colonial America. They go on to study the many roles people played in a colonial settlement and how necessary their interdependence was for survival. Students select one role to explore more deeply through various forms of nonfiction texts. With an emphasis on making inferences, summarizing informational text, basic research (note-taking and pulling together information from a variety of texts), this module will foster students’ abilities to synthesize information from multiple sources and integrate research into their writing. At the end of the module, students participate in several critique experiences during the revision process as they write a research-based narrative that vividly describes an event in a colonist’s life.

In this eight-week module, students explore animal defense mechanisms. They build proficiency in writing an informative piece, examining the defense mechanisms of one specific animal about which they build expertise. Students also build proficiency in writing a narrative piece about this animal. In Unit 1, students build background knowledge on general animal defenses through close readings of several informational texts. Students will read closely to practice drawing inferences as they begin their research and use a science journal to make observations and synthesize information. Students will continue to use the science journal, using the millipede as a whole class model. They begin to research an expert animal in preparation to write about this animal in Units 2 and 3, again using the science journal. In Unit 2, students will continue to build expertise about their animal and its defense mechanisms, writing the first part of the final performance task—an informative piece describing their animal, the threats to its survival, and how it is equipped to deal with them. With their new knowledge about animal defenses from Unit 1, students will read informational texts closely, using the same science journal to synthesize information about their animal. Unit 3 allows students to apply their research from Units 1 and 2 to write a narrative piece about their animal that incorporates their research. This narrative will take the format of a choose-your-own-adventure. For their performance task, students will plan, draft, and revise the introduction and one choice ending of the narrative with the support of both peer and teacher feedback. The second choice ending will be planned, written, and revised on-demand for the end of unit assessment.

In this module, students engage in reading, writing, listening, and speaking to build knowledge of simple machines and how they impact force, effort, and work.

Download the full Grade 4 ELA Module 3B as a zip folder of PDF files. Each module, unit, and lesson file will appear separately within the folder.

In this module, students will read, write, and speak about the topic of voting rights and responsibilities. In the first two units, students will read informational texts that focus on the women’s suffrage movement and the leadership of New Yorker Susan B. Anthony. Specifically, they will read firsthand and secondhand accounts of her arrest and trial for voting in a time when women were outlawed from doing so. Students then read The Hope Chest by Karen Schwabach, a historical fiction novel set in the weeks leading up to the passage of the 19th Amendment. They will continue to examine the idea of leaders of change and explore the theme “making a difference” by collecting evidence on how selected characters make a difference for others. After completing the novel, students will analyze this theme in selected passages of the novel and write an essay

Grade 4: Module 1 of the EL Education K-8 Language Arts Curriculum. In this module, students build their literacy and social-emotional skills through the analysis of literary and informational texts, as they engage in a study of what inspires people to embrace a love of poetry and writing. For more information on getting started with the curriculum, please visit https://curriculum.eleducation.org.

Grade 4: Module 2 of the EL Education K-8 Language Arts Curriculum. In this module, students build their literacy and social-emotional skills through the analysis of literary and informational texts, as they engage in a study of animal defense mechanisms. For more information on getting started with the curriculum, please visit https://curriculum.eleducation.org.

Grade 4: Module 3 of the EL Education K-8 Language Arts Curriculum. In this module, students build their literacy and social-emotional skills through the analysis of literary and informational texts, as they engage in a study of perspectives on the American Revolution. For more information on getting started with the curriculum, please visit https://curriculum.eleducation.org.

Grade 4: Module 4 of the EL Education K-8 Language Arts Curriculum. In this module, students build their literacy and social-emotional skills through the analysis of literary and informational texts, as they engage in a study of the fight for women's voting rights and the passage of the 19th amendment. For more information on getting started with the curriculum, please visit https://curriculum.eleducation.org.

Grade 4 Life Science Module. In this module, students learn about different body structures of plants and animals and how those structures help an organism survive. The Life Science Module represents three additional hours per week of instruction during the eight to nine weeks covered by Grade 4: Module 2 of the EL Education K-8 Language Arts Curriculum. Although the Life Science Modules can stand alone, each one connects with and complements Module 2 of the grade-level language arts module lessons in Grades 3-5. To learn more about the Language Arts curriculum and how the Life Science Modules align with the language arts content, visit https://eleducation.org/resources/k-5-language-arts-guidance-document.

In this 25-day module of Grade 4, students extend their work with whole numbers.  They begin with large numbers using familiar units (hundreds and thousands) and develop their understanding of millions by building knowledge of the pattern of times ten in the base ten system on the place value chart (4.NBT.1).  They recognize that each sequence of three digits is read as hundreds, tens, and ones followed by the naming of the corresponding base thousand unit (thousand, million, billion).

Module 2 uses length, mass and capacity in the metric system to convert between units using place value knowledge.  Students recognize patterns of converting units on the place value chart, just as 1000 grams is equal 1 kilogram, 1000 ones is equal to 1 thousand.  Conversions are recorded in two-column tables and number lines, and are applied in single- and multi-step word problems solved by the addition and subtraction algorithm or a special strategy.  Mixed unit practice prepares students for multi-digit operations and manipulating fractional units in future modules.

In this 43-day module, students use place value understanding and visual representations to solve multiplication and division problems with multi-digit numbers. As a key area of focus for Grade 4, this module moves slowly but comprehensively to develop students’ ability to reason about the methods and models chosen to solve problems with multi-digit factors and dividends.

This 20-day module introduces points, lines, line segments, rays, and angles, as well as the relationships between them. Students construct, recognize, and define these geometric objects before using their new knowledge and understanding to classify figures and solve problems. With angle measure playing a key role in their work throughout the module, students learn how to create and measure angles, as well as create and solve equations to find unknown angle measures. In these problems, where the unknown angle is represented by a letter, students explore both measuring the unknown angle with a protractor and reasoning through the solving of an equation. Through decomposition and composition activities as well as an exploration of symmetry, students recognize specific attributes present in two-dimensional figures. They further develop their understanding of these attributes as they classify two-dimensional figures based on them.

In this 40-day module, students build on their Grade 3 work with unit fractions as they explore fraction equivalence and extend this understanding to mixed numbers.  This leads to the comparison of fractions and mixed numbers and the representation of both in a variety of models.  Benchmark fractions play an important part in students’ ability to generalize and reason about relative fraction and mixed number sizes.  Students then have the opportunity to apply what they know to be true for whole number operations to the new concepts of fraction and mixed number operations.