English Language

During the elementary years, students focus on reading, writing, language, listening and speaking. Students are exposed to a wide variety of literature, informational texts, and foundational skills. Students write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences. In addition, students learn to engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly. They exhibit command of the conventions of Standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

By the end of Grade 4, students are expected to:

• Read, comprehend, and analyze literature and informative texts, including stories, dramas, poetry, social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grade five text complexity band independently and proficiently.
• Write opinion pieces, narratives, and informative/explanatory texts that are clear and coherent through the writing process of planning, revising, editing, and rewriting and by using technology, including the internet, to produce and publish writing.
• Conduct short research projects that use several sources to build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a topic.
• Comprehend, collaborate, and present knowledge and ideas in a range of discussions and with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and texts.
• Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English appropriate to a fifth grade level such as capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when producing language.

Mathematics
During the elementary years, students with support and guidance focus on four critical areas developing understanding of addition, subtraction, and strategies for addition and subtraction within 20. They develop an understanding of whole number relationships and place value, including grouping in tens and ones. They learn linear measurement and measuring lengths such as iterating length units. Students learn reasoning about attributes of and composing and decomposing geometric shapes.

By the end of Grade 4, students are expected to:

• Use the four operations with whole numbers to solve problems.
• Gain familiarity with factors and multiples.
• Generate and analyze patterns.
• Generalize place value understanding for multi-digit whole numbers.
• Use place value understanding and properties of operations to perform multi-digit arithmetic.
• Extend understanding of fraction equivalence and ordering.
• Build fractions from unit fractions by applying and extending previous understandings of operations on whole numbers.
• Understand decimal notation for fractions, and compare decimal fractions.
• Solve problems involving measurement and conversion of measurements from a larger unit to a smaller unit.
• Represent and interpret data.
• Geometric measurement: understand concepts of angles and how to measure them
• Draw and identify lines and angles, and classify shapes by properties of their lines and angles
• Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.

Science
During grades three to four students form deeper connections between concepts and skills previously learned, such as evaluating methods for collecting data, revising models based on evidence, and analyzing data to make sense of phenomena. During this stage, students apply scientific ideas to solve design problems, learn that communicating with peers about proposed solutions is an important part of the design process, and that shared ideas can lead to improved designs to generate and compare multiple solutions to a problem.

By the end of Grade 4, students are expected to:

• Measure and describe physical quantities such as weight, time, temperature, and volume. Then, make observations, measure and graph to produce data that can serve to identify materials based on their properties, structure or interaction with other materials.
• Use evidence to construct an explanation for how the variations in characteristics among individuals of the same species may provide advantages in surviving, finding mates, and reproducing
• Describe interdependent relationships within an ecosystem: how plants growth is primarily reliant on air and water and how animal food is derived from energy from the sun.
• Make observations about how matter moves throughout the environment, and describe the flow of matter through a food chain.
• Design models of the Earth-Sun system by examining patterns of night and day, Earth’s rotation, and relationships between apparent brightness and distance.

Social Studies
Elementary students understand and develop the knowledge and skills of history, geography, civics, and economics that prepare them for informed, responsible, and participatory citizenship and develop their skills in debate, discussion, and writing. The program also provides students with a framework for continuing education in history and the social sciences through examining the social, cultural, and political characteristics of major ancient world cultures that will help students to recognize that many aspects of ancient cultures served as the foundation for modern governments, customs, traditions, and perspectives.

By the end of grade four, students are expected to:

• Analyze how physical and ecological processes shape Earth’s surface.
• Apply the concept of a region
• Demonstrate skills for historical thinking, geographical analysis, economic decision making, and responsible citizenship
• Apply social science skills to understand the organization and powers of the state and local governments described in the Constitution of Virginia
• Apply social science skills to understand how economic decisions are made in the marketplace
• Apply social science skills to understand the United States economy
• Demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between physical geography and the lives of the native peoples, past and present, of Virginia
• Demonstrate an understanding of life in the Virginia colony
• Demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between physical geography and the lives of the native peoples, past and present, of Virginia
• Demonstrate an understanding of Virginia during the twentieth century and beyond

Computer
Learn about More advanced concepts in programming like loops and functions using programming online tools Scratch and Code.org. They will learn how to create quizzes using PowerPoint. 

By the end of Grade 4, students are expected to:

• Students will be able to create fun quizzes using slides in PowerPoint.
• They will work with more advanced features of coding like loops and functions.

French Language
The elementary years’ French course is based on Virginia State Standards for French language aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Elementary students continue to develop their communicative and cultural competence by interacting orally and in writing with other speakers of the target language, understanding oral and written messages in the language, and making oral and written presentations in the language.

By the end of Grade 4, students are expected to:

• Understand basic spoken and written French presented through a variety of media in familiar contexts
• Participate in brief oral and written exchanges that reflect present, past, and future time frames.
• The student will present information orally and in writing in French, combining learned and original language in connected sentences and paragraphs on familiar topics.
• Compare information acquired in other subject areas to topics discussed in French class.
• Identify some details and key words when listening to and reading French.

German Language
The elementary German course is based on Virginia State Standards for German language aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Elementary students continue to develop their communicative and cultural competence by interacting orally and in writing with other speakers of the target language, understanding oral and written messages in the language, and making oral and written presentations in the language
By the end of Grade 4, the students are expected to:

• Recognize familiar words and very basic and phrases concerning self, family and immediate concrete surroundings when people speak slowly and clearly.
• Understand familiar names, words and very simple sentences, for example on notices and posters or in catalogues.
• Interact in a simple way provided the other person is prepared to repeat or rephrase things at a slower rate of speech and help himself formulate what is being said.
• Ask and answer simple questions in areas of immediate need or on very familiar topics.
• Use simple phrases and sentences to describe where he lives and people he knows.
• Write a short, simple postcard, for example sending holiday greetings.

 
Art
Students learn through inquiry. Students examine aspects of the artistic process: idea generation, problem solving, and self-assessment. Students investigate the integral role of art and architecture within various cultures, and they combine knowledge of art and architecture, effective artistic processes and skills, and a variety of ideas to produce works of art.
By the end of Grade 4, students are expected to:

• Use atmospheric perspective in works of art.
• Use size and proportion to emphasize spatial relationships in works of art.
• Draw the human figure in proportion from observation.
• Use contemporary media to create works of art.
• Create sculpture in the round, high relief, or bas-relief, using three-dimensional media, including clay.
• Combine various craft techniques in works of art.

Physical Education
Students refine, vary, and combine skills in complex situations and demonstrate more proficient movement patterns in educational games, dance, and gymnastic activities to become confident and competent movers. Students identify critical elements (small, isolated parts of the whole skill or movement) and apply them in their movement. They develop fitness knowledge and can relate regular physical activity to energy balance and health benefits. Students continue to build knowledge of body structures and systems. They know safe practices, rules, and procedures and apply them with little or no reinforcement. Students work cooperatively with peers and understand that there are many differences in movement skill and ability levels among their classmates.

By the end of Grade 4, students are expected to:

• Create and perform an educational gymnastic sequence including travel, roll, balance, and weight transfer, with smooth transitions and changes of direction, shape, speed, and flow.
• Create and perform individual or group rhythm/dance sequences including American and international dances ­and a jump-rope routine (self-turn or long rope).
• Demonstrate use of space in a variety of activities.
• Identify methods for evaluating and improving personal fitness such as health-related criterion referenced tests, heart rate, body mass index (BMI), and pedometer data.
• Compare and analyze fitness data to health-related criterion-referenced standards (Virginia wellness-related fitness standards, Fitnessgram®, CDC guidelines) to assess levels of personal fitness and identify strengths and weaknesses.
• Create a basic personal fitness plan for at least one health-related component of fitness, to include baseline fitness data, SMART goal, activities that will address the goal, log of activities inside and outside of school, reassessment data (post-data) and reflection of goal progress/attainment.

Music
DIS offers its students from starting Grade 3, a unique music education experience through applying a dedicated music curriculum in association with Cairo Music Center, accredited by The Royal Schools of Music in London (ABRSM), the globally renowned music education entity.

During the elementary years, students focus on the language and production of music. Instruction focuses on the development of skills in singing, playing instruments, listening, moving, and responding to music. Emphasis is placed on performing simple rhythms and developing aural skills related to pitch, musical form, and instrument identification. Emphasis is also placed on ensemble playing, notating pitches and rhythms, and identifying orchestral instruments. Students continue to expand their knowledge of orchestral instruments and music from various cultures. Students also gain understanding of music styles and listen to, analyze, and describe music.

By the end of Grade 4, students are expected to:

• Read and notate music, demonstrate various uses of the voice sing a variety of songs alone and with others, play a variety of pitched and no pitched instruments alone and with others, perform rhythmic patterns, respond to music with movement.
• Create music, explore historical and cultural aspects of music, demonstrate audience and participant behaviors appropriate, and describe the relationships between music and other fields of knowledge.
• Analyze and evaluate music, investigate aesthetic concepts related to music.