Fourth Grade

A Great Heart

What does having a great heart mean?

1. Knowledge Threads
   • Authors use literal and figurative language to explain the complex physical functions of
     the human heart.
   • Authors use literal and figurative language to explain complex emotions frequently
     associated with the heart.
   • The heart, an organ that is part of the circulatory system, pumps blood to supply the
     body’s cells with oxygen.
   • A person with a literal great heart has a healthy heart with functioning valves and clean
     arteries.
   • A person with a figurative great heart exhibits empathy, generosity, and courage.
   • Authors and artists depict what it means to have a literal or figurative great heart.
2. Learning Targets
   • I can build knowledge about literal and figurative hearts by reading literary and informational texts.
   • I can summarize texts about hearts and determine their themes and central ideas.
   • I can describe a character’s thoughts, words, and feelings using evidence from the text.
   • I can explain how authors use figurative language to express complex ideas about the heart.
   • I can explain how charts, graphs, diagrams, and other visuals help readers understand informational texts about the circulatory system.
   • I can write informative essays about what it means to have a great heart, both literally and figuratively.
   • I can strengthen my writing by using precise vocabulary and transition words and phrases to connect ideas.
   • I can participate in class discussions about what it means to have a great heart by speaking clearly, taking turns, listening for main points, and using relevant textual evidence to support my ideas.

Myths and Enduring Stories

What do people learn from myths and stories?

1. Knowledge Threads
   • Myths and stories contain universal messages that help readers understand the world
     more deeply.
   • Modern literature and language often include allusions to Greek and Roman
     mythology.
   • Storytellers use media, such as text, drama, film, art, and illustrations, to share stories.
   • People share stories to entertain, teach, and connect with each other.
2. Learning Targets
   • I can build knowledge about how myths and other stories endure by reading literary and informational texts.
   • I can summarize a variety of texts, including myths and novels, and determine enduring themes.
   • I can describe characters in detail, especially how they react to important events in a story.
   • I can explore differences and connections between a story and the screenplay of its movie version.
   • I can write narratives about characters who face challenges, experience victory and fortune, and demonstrate heroism.
   • I can strengthen my writing by using dialogue, description, and sensory details.
   • I can transform my narratives into engaging audio recordings that demonstrate fluent reading.
   • I can participate in class discussions about enduring stories by asking questions, building on others’ ideas, and explaining evidence in detail.

The American Revolution

How does the pursuit of freedom inspire people's actions?

1. Knowledge Threads
   • People’s experiences during the American Revolution era shaped their opinions about
     liberty.
   • People respond in a variety of ways when they think something is unfair or unjust.
   • An author’s or artist’s choices in craft and composition can influence and persuade
     their audience.
   • The Patriots were acting in the pursuit of ideals outlined in the Declaration of
     Independence.
2. Learning Targets
   • I can build knowledge about how the pursuit of freedom inspires people’s actions by reading literary and informational texts.
   • I can summarize a variety of texts, including primary source documents, and determine their central ideas.
   • I can analyze multiple perspectives on the historical events leading to the American Revolution.
   • I can describe characters and explain how they interact with other characters, events, and settings.
   • I can write opinion essays about the most meaningful actions taken by the Patriots in their pursuit of freedom.
   • I can strengthen my writing by using and correctly punctuating direct quotes and by using modals to show ability, possibility, and certainty.
   • I can participate in class discussions about how values inspire people by sharing ideas in an organized way, answering questions to clarify ideas, and connecting my ideas to the discussion.

Let's Play Ball

How can individuals contribute to a collective legacy?

1. Knowledge Threads
   • Baseball has a history of uniting people.
   • The Negro Leagues were organized to bring excluded athletes together to compete
     professionally in baseball.
   • Race and gender have presented barriers for some athletes throughout the history of
     professional baseball.
   • Individuals who have faced challenges and barriers can teach us important lessons
     about perseverance, courage, and dedication.
   • The legacy of the Negro Leagues continues to endure.
2. Learning Targets
   • I can build knowledge about how individuals contributed to the collective legacy of the Negro Leagues by reading literary and informational texts.
   • I can summarize sections of texts and determine their central ideas.
   • I can describe how ideas and information are organized in texts about Negro League baseball.
   • I can examine the Negro Leagues and explain their impact on the integration of Major League Baseball.
   • I can gather and synthesize information from print and digital resources.
   • I can use writing, speaking, and visual displays to present research about an important individual from the Negro Leagues to a specific audience.
   • I can participate in class discussions about how individuals who face challenges or barriers can teach important lessons by asking and answering questions to deepen understanding and clarify meaning.

Introduction: What Is History?

Chapter 1: The Land We Call Home

Essential Question: What tools can we use to study geography, and how does geography shape the way we live?

Learning Targets:

1. Tools of Geography
   • I can identify Colorado as part of the United States of America on the continent of North America.
   • I can explain how people use tools like maps, satellite pictures, and GPS to answer questions about geography.
2. Features and Regions
   • I can identify Colorado’s natural and human features.
   • I can explain how regions are places that have something in common.
   • I can examine Colorado’s five land regions.
3. People and the Land
   • I can describe how geography affects where people settle and how they live.
   • I can examine how places are connected by the movement of goods and services.
   • I can explain how people affect geography when they use and change the land.
   • I can identify the importance of protecting the environment to conserve natural resources

Chapter 2: The First People

Essential Question: Who were Colorado's first people?

Learning Targets:

1. Paleo and Archaic Peoples
   • I can identify that Paleo-Americans were the first people to live in Colorado.
   • I can explain how the Archaic people adapted to a warmer climate with fewer large animals.
2. Pueblo Farmers 
   • I can examine how Ancestral Puebloans learned advanced ways to get food and build homes.
   • I can analyze how the Fremont people were similar to the Ancestral Puebloans except in their art.
3. Historic Peoples 
   • I can identify that the Utes were the oldest historic group in Colorado.
   • I can describe how the Cheyenne came from the East and mainly hunted bison.
   • I can examine how the Arapaho became friends with the Cheyenne and fought against the Utes.

Chapter 3:  Explorers and Fur Traders

Essential Question: How did early explorers and traders shape our history?

Learning Targets:

1. The Spanish in North America
   • I can identify that the Spanish were the first non-Native people to explore Colorado.
   • I can examine how early explorers told people about their travels.
   • I can analyze how European explorers brought change to the Native people living here.
2. The Land Changes Hands
   • I can identify how the Louisiana Purchase nearly doubled the size of the United States.
   • I can examine how Zebulon Pike wrote reports about the West that later explorers used.
   • I can explain why Stephen Long called the Great Plains the “Great American Desert.”
   • I can identify how John C. Frémont crossed Colorado on many expeditions.
   • I can explain how Colorado became part of the United States.
3. The Fur Trade
   • I can explain how the fur trade was the first industry in Colorado.
   • I can examine how people built forts and trading posts to trade year-round.
   • I can analyze how the fur trade brought many people to the West and changed the way Indigenous people lived.

Chapter 4: Moving West

Essential Question: In what ways did new settlement affect Colorado?

Learning Targets:

1. Pikes Peak Gold Rush
   • I can explain how prospectors traveled through Colorado on their way to California.
   • I can analyze why many people moved west to Colorado during the 1859 gold rush.
   • I can identify how discoveries of gold led to boomtowns.
2. Settling New Cities
   • I can explain how churches and schools helped shape settlements in Colorado.
   • I can analyze why immigrants from other countries came to Colorado to take part in the gold rush.
   • I can identify how Colorado Territory was created from the territories of Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Utah.
3. Settlement and Displacement
   • I can identify how settlers and Native Americans had different ideas about the land.
   • I can examine how Native Americans fought for their homeland during Colorado’s Plains Wars.
   • I can recognize how settlers planned for the future after Native Americans were forced to leave Colorado.

Chapter 5: A Changing Colorado  

Essential Question: What helped Colorado to grow in the mid- to late-1800's?

Learning Targets:

1. Growing Toward Statehood
   • I can analyze how the Homestead Act encouraged people to settle in Colorado Territory.
   • I can explain how railroads developed to bring goods to new settlers faster.
   • I can identify changes that railroads brought to Colorado Territory.
   • I can describe how Colorado became the 38th state on August 1, 1876.
2. The Silver Boom
   • I can recognize how the silver boom helped Colorado grow.
   • I can analyze why the U.S. government took more land from the Utes when prospectors found silver.
   • I can identify how battles between the Utes and settlers led to the forced removal of the Utes to southwestern Colorado and Utah.
   • I can explain how Colorado women won the right to vote in 1893.
3. Ranching
   • I can analyze how people began raising cattle along Colorado’s eastern plains.
   • I can examine why the range wars were fought between cattle ranchers and sheep ranchers.

Chapter 6: Colorado in the 20th Century  

Essential Question: How did events in the 1900's cause change?

Learning Targets:

1. A New Century
   • I can identify how changes in transportation, health care, and the workplace improved life for many people in the early 20th century.
   • I can describe how Colorado helped the country during World War I.
   • I can explain how reformers worked to improve society in many ways.
2. Hard Times
   • I can describe how a long drought in the 1930s made it difficult for people to earn a living on the plains.
   • I can identify how the Great Depression caused many people to lose their jobs and homes.
3. World War II
   • I can explain how World War II helped end the Great Depression in Colorado and around the country.
   • I can describe how World War II affected Coloradans.

Chapter 7: Modern Colorado

Essential Question: In what ways does Colorado continue to grow and change?

Learning Targets:

1. A Fight for Rights
   • I can identify how America changed as returning soldiers bought homes in the suburbs and started families.
   • I can explain how the Civil Rights Movement pushed for more rights for many people, including African Americans and Hispanic Americans.
2. Who We Are Today
   • I can recognize how immigrants have made Colorado diverse by bringing new traditions and ways of life.
   • I can examine how people from different cultures work together to build our cities and communities.
3. Current Issues
   • I can identify how the people of Colorado work to protect the environment by limiting pollution and saving energy.
   • I can examine how technology has changed how people live, travel, communicate, and work.

Chapter 8: Economics and You

Essential Question: What factors help us to make economic choices?

Learning Targets:

1. Producing Goods and Services
   • I can examine how positive and negative incentives influence people’s actions.
   • I can explain how incentives help determine the goods and services we produce.
   • I can identify that productive resources include natural, human, and capital resources.
2. Economic Choices
   • can explore opportunity cost and its impact on making economic choices.
   • I can identify how comparing costs and benefits can help people make choices.
   • I can explain how economic choices include risks

Chapter 9: Government for All of Us

Essential Question: How is Colorado's government set up, and how does it work?

Learning Targets:

1. Our State Government
   • I can identify that the U.S. government is a representative democracy.
   • I can explain how different levels of government meet the needs of people and prevent the government from becoming too powerful.
   • I can analyze how our government divides power among three branches.
   • I can examine how taxes pay for services the government provides.
2. Get Involved!
   • I can analyze how good citizens stay informed about the issues around them.
   • I can explore how individuals and groups can get involved in their community by voting, volunteering, and working together.

A Great Heart

Informative Writing

Learning Targets:

Myths and Enduring Stories

Narrative Writing

Learning Targets:

Knowledge

• I can explain the meaning of fortune.
• I can explain what makes a character heroic.
• I can describe a setting from The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

Writing

• I can create a setting and characters for my story.
• I can include a problem in my narrative.
• I can organize events in a clear sequence that leads to a climax and resolution.
• I can use transition words and phrases to sequence events.
• I can write a conclusion that brings my narrative to a close.
• I can use dialogue to show how characters interact and respond to situations.
• I can use description to develop characters and events.
• I can use sensory details and precise language to make my writing vivid and clear.
• I can create an audio recording of my entire story.
• I can read fluently during my audio recording.

Language Goals

• I can use commas and quotation marks correctly in dialogue.
• I can order adjectives correctly in sentences.
• I can use punctuation for effect.
• I can use correct capitalization in my writing.
• I can spell grade-level-appropriate words correctly.

The American Revolution

Opinion Writing

Learning Targets:

Knowledge

• I can explain important historical information about the American Revolutionary War era.
• I can explain actions the Patriots took during the American Revolutionary War era.

Writing

• I can use a hook to catch the reader’s attention.
• I can write a thesis statement with a clear opinion.
• I can name two main reasons that support my opinion in my thesis.
• I can write proof paragraphs about each reason.
• I can use transition words or phrases to begin proof paragraphs.
• I can write a topic sentence to begin each proof paragraph.
• I can use textual evidence to support my reasons.
• I can elaborate on evidence to explain my thinking.
• I can use transition words or phrases to connect ideas within proof paragraphs.
• I can write a concluding paragraph that explains why my opinion is important.

Language Goals

• I can use topic-specific vocabulary to support my reasons.
• I can use words that show ability, possibility, and certainty such as can, may, and must.
• I can use commas and quotation marks correctly with direct quotes.
• I can use a comma before a coordinating conjunction in a compound sentence.
• I can spell grade-level-appropriate words correctly.

Let's Play Ball

Narrative, Informative, or Opinion Writing (Research)

Learning Targets:

Knowledge

• I can demonstrate knowledge about my research topic.

Writing, Speaking, and Visual Display

• I can use writing, speaking, and a visual display to share important research findings.
• I can write in a way that matches my audience and purpose.
• I can speak about my research findings in an organized way.
• I can speak in a way that matches my audience and purpose.
• I can share relevant facts and details when presenting my research findings.
• I can create a visual display that matches my audience and purpose.
• I can create a visual display that helps explain and strengthen my research findings.

Language Goals

• I can use formal English when appropriate.