Welcome to our Fourth Grade Website!

Thank you for taking the time to visit the fourth grade website at Bull Run.  We are excited you stopped by. Let’s start by introducing you to our fourth grade staff.  Our General Education teachers include the following: Mark Rueffert, Claudia Sleeger, Susanne Shahidi, and Tammy Moye.  Our Advanced Academics Center teachers are: Terry Dagenhart and Audrey Hancock.  The Special Education Team in fourth grade includes: Carole Lynne Bedell and Ava Liakakos.  Our ESOL teachers include Eva Herman, Gwen O’Dette, and Michaela Madsen.  The instructional assistants working with us include: Barbara Campbell and Maggie Donabedian.  

Fourth grade is an exhilarating year filled with many first time events.  For example; this is the first year that your child will receive “A”, “B”, “C” letter grades.  It is also the first year your child will have a text book.  Another first is the opportunity to participate in the strings program here at Bull Run.  Can you believe your child is already in the fourth grade?  Do you remember the first time they walked through the doors off to Kindergarten?

Did you know that Virginia is divided up into 5 geographical regions? Do you know who wrote the Virginia Declarations of Rights?  This year, fourth graders across Virginia will learn the answers to those questions and more.  They will gain knowledge of Virginia’s geography and history.  The children will begin their learning journey discovering Virginia’s first inhabitants and learning about the first English settlement in Jamestown.  Quickly they will travel through time to learn about Colonial Virginia.  Next stop , the American Revolution, the developing of our New Nation and then the devastation of the Civil War and the fight to reconstruct our nation.  Then the children will follow along on the pages of history to find out about the Civil Rights movement and how Virginia developed in the twentieth century.

We will continue to develop and explore the mathematical strands studied in previous grades.  Your child will be engaged in learning about multiplication, division, fractions, algebra, geometry, graphing, measurement, problem solving and probability.  

Our science program is hands-on and inquiry based.  Your child will use interactive notebooks to collect information/notes on concepts taught and to extend those concepts and make connections to what they are learning.  Subjects taught include energy, electricity and magnetism, weather, our solar system, the moon, fast plants and the Virginia ecosystem. 

This year, our students will either be involved in Word Study or the Caesar’s English program.  Your child will be engaged in small group guided reading, novel studies, writers notebook, oral language presentation, and writing and reading in different genres and styles.  

We are very lucky to have the opportunity to extend our learning with field trips and hands on learning.  This year your child will make cookie maps of the 5 regions of Virginia.  They will visit Jamestown, Williamsburg, the National Mall, the Kennedy Center and a local planetarium.  They will also have the chance to participate in Colonial Day!  2009- 2010 will be an exciting school year. Don’t forget to visit your child’s blackboard (FCPS 24/7) site for updated information and homework each week!  

The Fourth Grade Team