In Grade 4, multilingual learners in ELD/ESL classes continue to build their skills as readers, writers, speakers, and listeners while exploring meaningful topics from social studies and science. ESL class does not replace classroom instruction—rather, it supports and strengthens language development so students can participate fully and confidently in all subjects. Grade 4 unit topics include: Cultural Traditions; Animal Intelligence; Extreme Places; and The Power of Nature.
Our Multilingual (ML) teachers implement an ESL Curriculum using National Geographic Reach Higher resources to provide engaging stories, visuals, and informational texts. Lessons are designed with the WIDA Standards Framework, which guides how students grow in social and academic English across listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
Students will explain what cultural traditions are and why they are important.
Students will describe how people celebrate identity, values, and belonging through traditions.
Students will identify main ideas and details in texts about traditions.
Students will share stories, facts, and examples about their own or others’ traditions.
Students will organize their ideas clearly to explain how traditions connect people across cultures and time.
How can I explain what a cultural tradition is and why it matters?
How can I describe how people celebrate and share their traditions?
How can I use facts, feelings, and examples to show why traditions are important?
How do traditions help people feel proud, stay connected, and understand one another?
How can I share my own traditions in speaking or writing?
What traditions are special in our family?
How do we celebrate holidays, birthdays, or community events?
Why are these traditions important to us?
How are our family’s traditions the same as or different from others you’ve learned about?
What new words did you learn in class to describe traditions?
Suggested Activities:
Read Together in Any Language
Read a book in your home language or in English about how people celebrate a tradition.
Pause and Ask: What tradition is shown in the story? Why is this tradition important to the characters? How is it the same as or different from our traditions?
Family Tradition Story
Share a memory of a special family tradition (holiday, food, music, or celebration).
Have your child retell the story in your home language or in English.
Compare Traditions
Talk about how your family’s traditions are the same as or different from traditions of friends, neighbors, or stories you know.
Use words like both, same, different, also, but.
Students will explain what makes animals intelligent and how they solve problems.
Students will describe how animals think, behave, and adapt to their environments.
Students will identify main ideas and details in stories, interviews, and informational texts about animals.
Students will share their own ideas clearly about why scientists study animal intelligence.
Students will use new vocabulary to talk about animals, behavior, and learning.
How can I explain what makes animals smart?
How can I describe how animals survive, solve problems, and interact with their environment?
How can I find and share the main ideas and details in texts about animal intelligence?
Why do scientists study animal behavior and learning?
How can I organize my thoughts to explain my own ideas about animals?
What is one animal you learned about that is smart? What makes it intelligent?
How do animals solve problems in the wild or at home?
What was the main idea of a story or article you read about animal intelligence?
Why do scientists study animal behavior?
What new words did you learn to describe animals and how they act?
Suggested Activities:
Read Together in Any Language
Read a book in your home language or in English about animals and their intelligence. .
Pause and Ask: What was the main idea of the story or article? What did we learn about how animals think or solve problems? Why is this important for people to understand?
Compare Animal Smarts
Choose two animals (like a dolphin and a dog).
Talk about how they show intelligence in different ways.
Use words like both, same, different, also, but.
Watch and Describe
Observe a pet, animal outside, or a short video about animals.
Ask: What is the animal doing? How is it solving a problem or adapting?
Encourage your child to describe what they see using complete sentences.
Students will explain what makes a place “extreme” and why these environments are important to study.
Students will describe how people live, adapt, and explore in extreme environments.
Students will identify main ideas and details in stories, reports, and informational texts about extreme places.
Students will compare extreme places to explain how they are the same and different.
Students will share their own ideas clearly in speaking and writing about how Earth’s environments shape human life.
What makes a place “extreme”?
How do people live, adapt, or explore in extreme places?
How can I find the main ideas and details in texts about Earth’s environments?
How can I compare different extreme places to show similarities and differences?
Why is it important to understand extreme environments?
What is one extreme place you learned about?
What makes that place unique or challenging to live in?
How do people survive or adapt in that environment?
How is this extreme place the same as or different from where we live?
What new words did you learn to describe Earth’s environments?
Suggested Activities:
Read Together in Any Language
Read a book in your home language or in English about extreme places.
Ask: What makes this place extreme?; How do people learn about or survive in this environment?
Extreme Place Survival Brainstorm
Ask: If we lived in the desert (or Arctic, mountains, rainforest), what would we need to survive?
Make a list of food, shelter, and clothing ideas.
Compare Climates
Talk about the weather where you live compared to an extreme place.
Use words like hotter, colder, wetter, drier, both, different.