The St. Paul School curriculum gives students a solid foundation of skills to help them master each subject. Students are encouraged to be independent and take responsibility for their learning.

Religion

• Fourth Graders examine the foundations of morality: the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes.
• They understand that Jesus is the perfect image of God.
• They learn that the Holy Spirit gives them strength to follow Jesus and love God.

Language Arts

• Good literature, silent reading, and group discussion are used to extend students’ love of reading.
• Students apply their knowledge of language structure by editing for mechanics, usage, and cohesiveness.
• They incorporate an increasing vocabulary and identify patterns in language.
• Students correctly spell frequently encountered words using roots, inflections, pre-fixes and suffixes.
• They use simple & compound sentences, direct & indirect objects, prepositional phrases, adjectives, pronouns as antecedents, regular & irregular verbs, hyphens between syllables, apostrophes in contractions, and italics to identify titles or names.
• Students learn a variety of reading comprehension strategies and apply them to their daily reading.

Math

• Students continue to use manipulatives, mental math, estimation, calculators, graphs, and tables.
• They add/subtract decimals and work story problems with money and decimals.
• Students order/compare/add/subtract fractions with like denominators, and reduce to lowest terms.
• They study geometric terms such as cross section, edge, and polygon.
• Students learn rules of divisibility, place value, currency, expanded notation, standard form, prime & composite numbers, and percentages up to 100.
• They graph ordered pairs of numbers and learn the relationship between coordinate points.
• Students add/subtract whole numbers, multiply/divide with remainders, and use addition and subtraction to solve story problems.

Science

• By experimenting with light, sound, heat, electricity, magnetism, students recognize evidence of energy through observation and measurement of change.
• Students work with simple electrical circuits, heat transfer, and magnetism.
• They explore the life requirements of organisms and their sources of energy.
• Students investigate food chains and learn how environmental changes can affects species survival.
• They begin the study of earth in space, using models to demonstrate orbits, explain the phases of the moon, and explain the apparent movement of the sun and moon across the sky.

Social Studies

• Fourth Graders learn social studies through the context of “United States Studies.”
• Students use Michigan’s history as a case study for learning about the US.
• Students use maps to describe elevation, climate, and population. Using case studies, students learn about migration and culture.
• Students learn the purpose of government as described in the Constitution, how government functions to serve a purpose, and consequences of not having a government.
• Students focus on market economics and the concepts of scarcity, choice, and opportunity cost.

Specials and Extracurricular Activities

• Fourth Graders attend weekly specials classes in art, library, music, Spanish, gym, and computers.
• St. Paul offers a wide variety of after school activities for Fourth Graders, including chess, scouts, choir, art, altar service, and CYO sports (cross country, basketball, and track)