4th Grade Curriculum

When my husband and I decided we would homeschool our son starting in kindergarten, we thought it would be best to buy a complete curriculum that included all the books and instructions. And that is what we did. We bought the complet Core K from Sonlight. And I LOVED it!! However, from day 1 of Kindergarten, I noticed that my son had trouble. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but he had trouble learning how to write and also reading. I really began to be concerned about the reading, but he seemed to really get it by the end of the Kindergarten year and started to read really well. It was like a light bulb went off in his brain and he just started reading. It is not his favorite thing to do though.

In the first grade, we once again bought the complete Core 1 from Sonlight. The reading got better, but as I felt I got my feet wet, I didn't feel like my son was getting enough instruction about English grammar/phonics, math, hndwriting and fine arts. As someone with a degree in English and also a professional writer, I didn't think that Sonlight offered a language arts program that I could be satisfied with. So I started looking around. I also thought my son needed a more hands-on math program so I started looking around for that as well. By this time, I knew my son had some kind of fine motor skill problem and began seeking therapy so that he could somehow learn how to write. However, we still use the readers that Sonlight offers. We love, love, love the books in their program!

Fast forward 2 years. We are now in the middle of 4^th grade. Through occupational therapy, we have found out that my son has something called Auditory Processing Disorder. This is the cause of his fine motor skills issues along with some other problems that he is having. So the handwriting is a process and it is getting better. I started writing my own science and social studies unit studies because the programs that I found were either not enough or too much. It is working well this way and it is something I am trained to do, so it is really not a big deal.

This is our curriculum in the 4^th grade:

Shirley English level 2 – Someday we will move on to level 3 but oddly it is just about where the kids are in public school. We are on chapter 20. It has a built in creative writing program and uses teacher scripts so there is no way anybody could mis-teach the subject matter. It is thorough and effective. I am very satisfied with it and my sweet pea is getting it. That's all that matters. I highly recommend this program to anyone.

Spelling Power – I almost decided to chuck this one at the beginning of the year until I re-evaluated my son in August. He was spelling on a 3.4 grade level. We just completed Level C and re-evaluated again. He jumped to a 6.2 reading level. I think we'll keep it.

Reading - We are reading countless books! Some are from the Sonlight reading list and some are just timeless, children's classics. I will post our reading list sometime soon. We also listen to many audio books for our Little Giant Steps Program. Right now we are listening to The Adventures of Pinnochio, not the Disney version.

Right Start Math – we are on Level C. This program also has a teacher script and I like that. As an English Major in college, I say “I don't do math!” So a teacher script is a really good thing. I can't screw that up and I am learning math for the very first time along with my son.

Little Giant Steps – We are completing a customized program full of neurodevelopmental exercises that hopefully will help my son overcome his auditory processing disorder. It seems this may be our only hope because noone else seems to know what to do.

We are doing some other things as well. It seems like a lot, but we only do these occasionally:

Poetry lapbook

Penguins lapbook

Colonial Life pockets

Nature Study Journal

Activity Basket

Book Basket

Unit on Noah

Ancient Egypt unit

Ancient Mesopotamia unit

Ancient India unit

weather unit

Geography map skills book

Vocabulary

Art