Fourth Grade

About Mrs. Perkins

Robin Perkins was born and raised in Sonoma Valley.  She attended Saint Francis Solano School and is an alumni of Sonoma Valley High School.  She graduated with an Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences degree from the University of Washington, completed her ELA (English Learner) teaching credential at Sonoma State University and recently earned a Masters of Arts in Education with a major focus on Educational Administration from Concordia University Irvine.

Mrs. Perkins’ foundation as a teacher started in fourth grade while completing internship hours in preparation for teacher credentialing. With more than ten years experience teaching youth, Robin had the pleasure of teaching first grade at Saint Francis Solano school for seven years and upper division science with a focus on earth science, biology and physics for three years.  She participated in a WCEA accreditation of Saint Francis Solano School in 2012.  The following year she was honored to serve on a WCEA accreditation committee with principals and teachers all committed to serving and teaching our youth.  Most recently, she has had the opportunity to serve as Vice Principal, fourth grade homeroom and leadership moderator.

Being an educator in a multi-subject classroom, teaching all curriculum, to brilliant young minds brings her great joy. She wakes up each morning excited to spend the day learning with students and teaching Math, California History, Science, Reading, and Writing. Each and every day they collaborate, read, write, calculate, hypothesize, make predictions, summarize, and present. They use iPads to create, practice, and record their thoughts. They are active learners and she feels blessed to spend her days teaching brilliant young minds.

When not at school, Mrs. Perkins loves spending time with family and friends. Her daughters are a senior at UCLA and a freshman at St. Mary’s. She walks, bikes, and hikes as often as possible. She also loves music, dancing and reading. Her favorite books to read are historical fiction.

Fourth Grade Language Arts

A comprehensive study of writing, editing, spelling vocabulary, and grammar skills is undertaken, as well as learning various styles of writing including essays, persuasive, narrative, and creative writing, including poetry. To enhance our understanding of California History, we read several historical fiction novels including Pasquala, a story of a Native California Indian; Patty Reed’s Doll, the story of the Donner Party; and By the Great Horn Spoon, a story about the California Gold Rush.

Math

A comprehensive curriculum, using state standards including number sense, place value, multiplication, division, introduction to algebra theory, geometry, fractions, decimals, order of operations, logic, and graphing.

Science

The series twig Science is NGSS based and teaches students the science standards through hands-on experiments. The emphasis is on human body, earth materials and electricity. Students do reports and presentations on insects, mammals and minerals.

Social Studies

We study California history from the early Native California tribes to the Mission period, to westward expansion, the Gold Rush period and the transcontinental railroad. With the assistance of the local community center, the fourth graders make a ceramic mission model that is later displayed at Mission San Francisco de Solano in Sonoma. Several field trips with an emphasis on California history are planned including a trip to Sacramento to visit Sutter’s Fort.

Religion

Our focus is on the Old and the New Testaments, the Ten Commandments, learning correct Bible notation, parts of the Mass, and seasons of the Church calendar.  In the spring, we study Family Life using a series that encourages students to continue to be responsible, positive members of their family and community.