For comprehensive teaching of the science standards at grade 4, with multiple exposures, science should be taught every day. Active-investigation sessions (including wrap-up) and reading sessions might be 40–45 minutes, I-Check and assessment-review sessions 20–25 minutes.

Active-investigation (A) sessions include hands-on work with rocks, minerals, and stream tables, active thinking about the concrete experiences, small-group discussion, writing in science notebooks, learning new vocabulary in context, and completing written embedded assessments to inform instruction.

Wrap-up (W) sessions are teacher-directed vocabulary reinforcement and science content review.

Reading (R) sessions (Science Resources book) include individual and interactive reading, answering review questions, and discussing the reading to ensure that students integrate the information.

I-Checks are short summative assessments. Students respond to written prompts. The next day, after you have scored the assessments, students review their written responses to reflect on and improve their understanding.