The St. Mary's Classroom

Fourth Grade
Mrs. Lisa Kiger
lkiger@stmarysstclair.org
class website: http://lkigerstmarys.weebly.com

Hello, my name is Mrs. Lisa Kiger and I teach fourth grade. This is my sixth year teaching at a Catholic School. I taught sixth grade subjects, math, literature, and spelling for four years. I landed my “dream job” at St. Mary’s the summer of 2007. This is my second year at St. Mary’s, the first year I taught second grade, now I’m teaching fourth grade. I love teaching at St. Mary’s because of the supportive faculty, helpful families, and caring students.

I’m also a mother, I have two handsome sons, Daniel and Jonathan, a caring husband, Jason and a dog named, Chubbs. I love to spend time with my family and friends. We love to go boating, fishing, camping, and just hanging out. I also like to play “Texas Hold-Em”!

I love that I can include God in my lessons and that respect and responsibility play such a positive role in our school day. I believe that each child has a right to learn. Each needs to be treated with respect and they will be given respect back. I am their teacher but many others at school take part in their Christian education.

Teaching is my passion and I am constantly coming up with things to keep the “magic” in learning. Today more than ever, our students need multiple opportunities to work with familiar concepts and materials in a wide variety of ways, which accelerates meeting academic standards.

The following is a nugget of wisdom that keeps me inspired to give
200 % everyday:

“Teachers are those who use themselves as bridges, over which they invite their students to cross; then having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own.”
-Nikos Kazantzaakis

As fourth graders, children will learn and develop in the following areas:

Math: Find missing addends, adding and subtracting money, adding and subtracting three and four digit numbers, multiply three and four digit numbers, find perimeter, area, and volume, finding the mean, median, and mode, identify and describe angles. Among many other content areas, the GLCE’s are covered in my classroom. For a detailed list of content go to http://www.michigan.gov/mde and look under the Michigan Mathematics GCLE’s for fourth grade.

Religion: Deepen understanding and challenge children to live a biblical message, learn about Saints, participate in prayer and liturgy, as well as explore and celebrate seasonal feasts and seasons of the Church’s liturgical year. To also gain a deeper appreciation for the Catholic faith by studying the traditions of the church.

Science: Animals, Properties of Matter, Magnetism & Electricity, Land Resources, Water & Climate and Body’s Delivery System. We also participate in a three day field trip called “Earthkeepers” in Goodells. Students regularly use the school Science Lab for hands-on experiments.

Language Arts: Read different genres and levels of reading materials while drawing and predicting conclusions. There are several novels that we read in class that supports the development of reading, writing, listening, speaking, and creative thinking. The other aspect of language arts is writing. It is essential for the fourth grade to learn how to write in different styles. For example they will learn to write a research paper, fairytales, myths, letters, compare and contrast essays. These are all a part of the fourth grade GLCE’s and are an essential part of the classroom. Developing the student’s comprehension of the material that they have read through journals is another way of encouraging students to express their understanding of a text in a creative and fun manner.

Social Studies: In social studies the students will understand the history of the nation, region names, and family histories. Students will see what roles the women played in the early U.S. societies. Examine economics, culture, social and political systems. The goal of the social studies curriculum in fourth grade is to gain a deeper understanding of the development of the country in the areas of economics, politics and historical content. It is covered by region.