Why do I teach? I teach to make a difference in the lives of my students and to help them achieve personal successes.                                                                                                            What I love about teaching at St. Barbara: As a teacher at St. Barbara School, I value the commitment to education and the support of the families in the parish community.  

Curriculum

Religion: Attendance and participation at Masses as well as seasonal prayer services instill the practices and teachings of the Catholic faith.  Themes of "The Goodness of God", "Jesus is the Son of God", "The Holy Spirit", "The Church", and "Social Justice" are celebrated and related to bible stories.  Family Life allows for a deeper understanding of God's gifts of family, self, life, love and community.  The Second Step Program helps choose ways to resolve conflicts peacefully, with Christ-like manners.  

Math: Topics introduced and skills practiced throughout the year include: various problem solving methods and strategies; place value to the millions; adding and subtracting to the millions, multiplying and dividing by one and two digits; basic measurements with customary and metric units as well as time and temperature; graphs, surveys and line plots in statistics; events and outcomes in probability; estimations, equivalencies, ordering, comparing, adding and subtracting with fractions; and basic lines, angles, polygons, perimeter, area, and volume in geometry.

Language Arts: Language Arts is comprised of grammar, formal writing, journal writing, and vocabulary. Grammar rules for nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, adverbs, prepositions, and sentences are practiced and applied to writing assignments. Styles of writing learned are personal narrative, compare and contrast, persuasive, expository, and story writing. Journal writing allows students to respond to prompts in both creative and structured writing. To expand and improve their speaking and writing skills, 192 words (including synonyms, antonyms, parts of speech, and sentence usage) are studied in Vocabulary Workshop.

Science: Many questions are asked and answered and new discoveries are made while exploring Life Science, Earth Science, and Physical Science. Cells, plants, and animals are topics in Life Science; while the Moon, the Sun, and the Earth, including fossils, rocks, soil, and water, make up Earth Science. Physical Science consists of learning about matter, energy, electricity, and magnetism.

Social Studies: An overview of the United States as a country leads into an in- depth study of the five major regions. The land, water, valuable resources, contributions of important people, and defining events in history of the Northeast, the Southeast, the Midwest, the Southwest, and the West are the main focus. While studying each region, the students also learn each state’s capital city and abbreviation. A closer look at the state of Illinois and the cities of Chicago and Springfield is taken during work on the Midwest region. 

Reading: Among the genres read are: fiction (realistic, historical, classic), nonfiction (narrative and expository), biography and autobiography, tall tale and folktale, play, and myth. Skills practiced include: plot, main idea/supporting details, predicting, setting, character, author’s purpose, sequence, summarizing, generalizing, theme, making judgments, and drawing conclusions. Weekly spelling and phonics lessons coordinate with each story to reinforce the learning of the words in context.

 Fourth Grade Classroom Website