Grade 4 – Reading, Maths, Children’s Rights and Glowing Dinosaurs

It was a varied and lively week in Grade 4: there was reading, calculating, writing, discussing, crafting – and by the end of the week, even a whole herd of dinosaurs was glowing. Different subjects, different approaches, and plenty of active learning, creativity and enjoyment throughout.

New Reading Time: One Book at a Time

This week, we introduced a dedicated Reading Time as part of our efforts to strengthen a positive reading culture. The students were able to focus fully on their books, immerse themselves in stories and enjoy their own quiet reading moments.

Reading regularly is about much more than practising reading skills. It encourages curiosity, imagination, concentration and the joy of discovering new worlds. Our aim is to make reading an even more natural and enjoyable part of everyday school life.

Reading progress is also made visible in German lessons: after finishing a book, the students complete a short book review and add a self-designed book spine to our classroom bookshelf display. Little by little, a colourful collection is growing, showing how many books have already been read – and at the same time offering new reading recommendations to classmates.

Small steps – one book at a time!

Mathematics: Calculating Cleverly up to 100,000

In Mathematics, the focus this week was on addition and subtraction within the number range up to 100,000. The students practised different calculation strategies and worked particularly on finding efficient and clever ways to solve problems.

A new topic was also introduced: division with remainders. The students discovered that not every number can be divided evenly and gained their first experience with this new type of calculation.

To practise and consolidate their learning, they worked at a varied learning station with different media and task formats. This gave every student the opportunity to apply and strengthen what they had learned in different ways.

German: The Noun Gang Is Back

After submitting their stories for the writing competition last week, the students turned to a familiar topic in German: the four cases of nouns.

Together with the “Noun Gang”, they investigated how nouns and their accompanying words change depending on their grammatical function in a sentence.

Spelling was also part of the week’s work. The students took a closer look at words containing a syllable-separating h and used syllable clapping and swinging as a spelling strategy to identify these words more easily and write them correctly.

General Studies: Children’s Rights and Constructive Feedback

In General Studies, Grades 3 and 4 are continuing their joint work on children’s rights. The groups are now in the final stages of completing their posters.

This week, each group briefly presented the current state of its work. Afterwards, the students received appreciative feedback, compliments and helpful suggestions from their classmates.

The groups then decided for themselves which suggestions they wanted to use and which parts of their posters still needed improvement. In this way, the students are not only learning about children’s rights, but also how to give constructive feedback, respond to it and use it to improve their own work.

Art: Dinosaurs under Time Pressure

Thursday morning in Art was anything but relaxed. The Lantern Festival was already scheduled for that evening – and our dinosaurs were far from ready for their big appearance.

Pieces were everywhere: heads, tails, legs, spikes and plenty of green dinosaur bodies. Our dinosaurs were not extinct yet – but they were not completely assembled either.

So it was time to cut, glue, assemble, hold everything in place – and hope that no dinosaur would lose its head along the way. Glue sticks were working overtime, scissors were in constant use, and the art room quickly turned into a prehistoric workshop.

Little by little, an entire herd of green prehistoric creatures emerged. Green may have been compulsory, but boredom certainly was not. Every dinosaur developed its own character – some with especially impressive spikes, some with funny faces and some with tails that simply refused to stay where they belonged.

Just in time for the Lantern Festival, the dinosaur herd was ready. Millions of years after their extinction, dinosaurs suddenly returned to the world – this time peacefully, brightly glowing and without any dangerous teeth.

A week that once again showed just how varied learning can be: calm and focused during Reading Time, strategic in Mathematics, precise and language-focused in German, reflective in General Studies and wonderfully creative in Art.