Grades 3-4 Apply Today A Day in the Life

Julie Billiart Schools offer a unique, whole-child education program for children in grades K-8. 

Students are grouped into four different grade bands (K-2, 3-4, 5-6, and 7-8). Grade bands allow certified intervention specialists to break students into small groups based on ability. Students may join higher or lower grades within their bands based on their current needs and abilities for each subject. 

Students enjoy an 8:1 student to teacher ratio in grades 3-4. Each grade has two dedicated intervention specialists. Each grade features a main classroom and a resource room so that kids have more room for one-on-one instructions, small group instruction, and brain breaks. 

A Step Up

Entering the third and fourth grade is a notable transition for any child. Now out of the primary grades, students are expected to remain organized, practice expected behaviors, and adjust to more challenging academics. At Julie Billiart Schools, we help ease this transition by preparing students each step of the way for what’s expected and accepted. 

Executive Functioning 

Focusing on the beginning and end of the day, intervention specialists help our 3-4 grade band practice executive functioning by breaking large assignments into small chunks, organizing thoughts, initiating tasks (including non-preferred tasks), and maintaining the focus and attention toward the things they’re working on in class. 

Therapies and Specials

Students in grades 3 and 4 receive both push-in and one-on-one or small group therapy as directed by their IEP. A speech therapist visits the class or lunch group each week to help kids practice conversation skills in a natural setting. 3-4 enjoys weekly prayer service and physical education, as well as music and art therapy. 

Recess and Lunch 

All kiddos enjoy two recesses each day. We’ve found that two short recesses help kids break up the day and become re-energized for classroom instruction. Grade bands often take recess and lunch as a group. Students bring their own lunch to school. 

Instruction

Intervention specialists begin to introduce more independence in academics. Students are taught how to take the skill sets they’ve learned from teacher-led instruction in grades K-2 and apply it to independent classwork.

Grades 3 and 4 partake in 45 minutes a day of math instruction using the MyMath program. Number Worlds, an engaging, research-proven math intervention program is offered for students who need intervention to come up to grade-level. English Language Arts (ELA) is composed of reading, writing, phonics, and word-study instruction. ELA, which may be taught together or spaced out throughout the day, makes up about 150 minutes of instruction. Intervention specialists receive training in the Wilson Reading program to give students industry-leading instruction in the areas of 

• Word structure, in-depth, for automatic decoding and spelling
• Word recognition and spelling of high-frequency words, including irregular words
• Vocabulary, word understanding, and word-learning skills
• Sentence-level text reading with ease, expression, and understanding
• Listening comprehension with age-appropriate narrative and informational text
• Reading comprehension with narrative and expository text of increasing levels of difficulty
• Narrative and informational text structures
• Organization of information for oral or written expression
• Proofreading skills
• Self-monitoring for word recognition accuracy and comprehension

Students in grades 3-4 learn keyboarding and cursive writing. Daily religion studies focus on not only Catholic teaching, but helping kids to become strong community members who embody the JB Way. Science and social studies take place for 60-90 minutes every other day. 

Technology

All classrooms are equipped with ActivBoards and Chromebooks. 3-4 uses SeeSaw as a learning platform. Students begin to take quizzes online in the classroom to practice tech skills. Assistive technology like Read Write Gold and Kami is introduced to aid learners in reading comprehension.