Review the parts of a sentence. Fourth grade students should be able to identify nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives before learning about independent clauses. Write a sentence on the board and ask students to identify each part of the sentence. Ask students to generate their own sentences and label each part of the sentence.
Explain the term "independent clause" to your class before you define it. Ask students to tell you what each word in the term means. Clarify and add to the students' definitions. Students should be able to identify "independent" as standing alone and "clause" as a group of words that contains a verb and noun.
Define the term. This should flow from your explanation of the two words in the term: an independent clause is a sentence that stands alone. Thus, an independent clause is a complete sentence that has a noun and a verb, and which also expresses a complete thought in a complete sentence.
Give examples to help students learn. Check their progress with the topic. Students should be able to identify when a written sentence is an independent clause and when it is not. Ask them to justify their answer. Rather than choosing an answer at random, students should be able to tell you why a certain sentence is an independent clause. They should also be able to tell you why another sentence is not an independent clause.
For example: 'John went to the store to buy wheat bread, but the store was out of wheat bread, so he bought cinnamon bread instead.'
The clause, 'John went to the store to buy whole wheat bread' is an independent clause.
The clause, 'so he bought cinnamon bread instead.' is not an independent clause. It is a dependent clause. It has a noun and a verb (he bought), but it does not express a complete thought in a complete sentence.