At PNA we use The Responsive Classroom Approach. It is a way of teaching that fosters safe, challenging and joyful classroom and school wide climates for all students. Using this approach we understand that all of a students' needs - academic, social, emotional and...

At PNA we use the Lucy Calkins Framework for our Reading and Writing Workshop, however to help us improve on the nitty gritty aspects and foundational skills of writing in 4th grade, this year we are trying something new! ​What is VCOP and Big Write? VCOP and Big...

Well, it's ALL OVER! Our Fourth Graders have finished up their year and are ready to go on to Fifth Grade! This week, Fourth Grade (and Third Grade) were joined at the hip to celebrate and blow off some steam. There was PNA's First Annual Pac-Man Competition... ​First...

This week, students at Pacific Northern Academy showed their spirit with a different theme for each and every day. Monday was 'Denim Day', Tuesday was 'Blast From The Past (see the photos above and below), Wednesday was Sports Day, Thursday was 'Animal Day' and Friday...

Here at the Fourth Grade Blog, we ordinarily cover all of the 'usual' things in our newsletter, Language Arts, Math, Social Studies/Science, class trips, etcetera -- but this time we'd like to do feature a few things we don't normally feature. In this week's blog, we...

This week, Fourth Grade (finally) got to sit down to design their 'home structures.' Working in three groups, the students came up with their own independent designs based on structural concepts we studied in Social Studies and Science classes this year. The three...

Mission Control, the Eagle has landed! This week, the Fourth Grade took a trip to the Challenger Learning Center, in Kenai, Alaska, where they participated in activities related to science and engineering. The focus for the trip was on teamwork, but in the pictures...

An unfortunate math error has occurred. Please reboot your class. This week, fourth grade pushed through ten (yes, you read that correctly, ten) ERB tests in four days. By the time that Friday rolled around, their brains were twisted into pretzels and it took a little...

Who's that extra student in the picture? You'll have to ask YOUR OWN student to find out! There was a big change this week in the fourth grade class. Can you spot the change in the photograph above? That's right! Fourth grade is very happy to welcome David, a new...

This week, the Fourth Grade class was back in action! We'd thought that the students might be a little sluggish getting back, but it turns out that the opposite was true -- after two weeks of wild and wacky Spring Break, the Fourth Grade had more energy than ever!...