Fourth Grade Curriculum – Second Semester

* Updates * to the beginning of the year

I really like our adjustment to semesters this school year.  We fill so much of our school year with real life experiences that it is incredibly difficult to follow a traditional three 12-week terms in a Charlotte Mason education. 

On track, going well, no changes: Bible, The Chronicles of Narnia, fairytales, engineering with Grandpa, history, geography, grammar, copywork, dictation, Spanish, art lessons, Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, piano. 

Daily Riches and Skills

Family Folder

Memory Work: We will continue memorizing the state capitals. I am adding in a few lines from Shakespeare’s As You Like It as this is the play we will be reading this semester. The poem we will memorize is “Daffodils” by William Wordsworth. The three scripture passages we’ll be memorizing are Zephaniah 3:17, Psalm 42:8, and Matthew 6:33-34.

Songs: We will learn five songs over the semester changing to something new after six weeks. The hymns are “Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Me” and “Anywhere with Jesus.” The folksongs are “The Mermaid” and  “Shenandoah.”  I’m changing up our Spanish memory work, and we are going to  “Cielito Lindo.”

Math

My son is now is Saxon 5/4.  It’s going well.  He typically does four or five lessons, then we have a day where we do timed math facts and Simply Charlotte Mason Arithmetic. I’m having him do the odd problems on the odd lessons and the even problems on the even lessons.  At the end of the week, we go over the problems he got wrong during the week.  So far this system seems to be going okay. 

Literature

Shakespeare

We will be reading through As You Like It two days a week for 15-20 minutes. We had a great time going through A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so I’m hoping we’ll like reading this play together too.  Even though we’ve read through the Lamb’s version in a previous year, I thought we’d reread through the synopsis.  I use the Folgers version with my son, so sometimes I read the summary notes at the beginning of the scenes to explain what we’re about to read.

Poetry

I decided to buy the Amblesideonline Year 4 poetry anthology since all the collections I checked out from the library had too many poems to sift through.  I had said before that I didn’t really want to ge the anthology again, but I guess sometimes it’s a better way to get what I want.

Free Reads

We’re still using the AmblesideOnline Years 3.5 and 4 free read lists.  I still have a pile of books I want to read with my son.  I also pulled the books out that I had in a different free read tub I had kept to the side for my son to choose from in his free time.  Since he never picks from there, and I do want him to read them, I’ve decided I’m going to alternate him reading one of those on his own in between us reading the other books together.

Weekly Academics

The remainder of our subjects rotate once or twice a week. This is how we fit it all into our Charlotte Mason education.

History and Economics

My husband has asked that we add in reading and watching The Tuttle Twins series and then discuss them.  They have an easy series for my son to read on his own.  I’m having him read half a book and week and then narrate to me.

Science

Science will be divided into three parts – nature study, nature observation, and engineering. Our nature study topic is the sky.  I plan for us to make daily moon observations during the day or night.  I’m hoping this will stir up curiosity about other things we might see.

Riches

While I prefer introducing a new handicraft each term/semester, we’re repeating weaving potholders this semester.  We’re having a makers’ market again at the co-op family night.  I still have a lot of loops left from last year’s projects.  Now my daughter is old enough to join in.  I’m going to expand on his knowledge this year by emphasizing colors and design.

Composer

We will be reading Clyde Bulla’s The Ring and the Fire and listening to selections from Wagner.  I’m looking forward to doing something a little different with our composer study.

Artist

We are studying Whistler this semester using the Simply Charlotte Mason resources.

Semester 1, Week 2

What I’m Reading: King Lear by William Shakespeare
Another installment of my year of Shakespeare.  I listened to the Arkangel audio while reading along with the Folger’s edition.  I understood bits here and there but was lost in so many ways.  I watched the Kelly Cumbee class available on the House of Humane letters.  And then I watched it again and took notes.  My second viewing of the class coincided with what I was reading in Becoming Mrs. Lewis and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and On Fairy Stories.  I was able to make quite a few connections and understood so much more of the play.

Fourth Grade Highlight

I feel like we had a small victory this week.  I had originally planned to read the fairytale book aloud to my son, but due to how busy I was, I handed the book over to him. I told him which story to read, and then I had him narrate the tale back to me.  It worked perfectly.  I think I’m going to do this for the rest of the book.  While I really love reading most of the books with my son, it’s really nice to have work I can hand over to him to shift my load.  (Adding a second student is a challenge.  It has been a blessing that my children are separated by several years in this regard.  If they were closer in age, we would definitely be doing AO for groups.)

Another good part I’m realizing is that grammar is not taking as long as I expected.  That may not be the case all the way throughout, but I definitely feel like we could miss a week or two here or there and still complete the curriculum by the end of the school year.  Keeping the lesson at 10 minutes has worked out nicely so far. 

My son was introduced to division with remainders this week. (Is that considered long division?)  It was a challenge.  However, he’s slowly starting to make small connections between real life math and school work.  I still greatly dislike Saxon worksheets, but I feel like they’re a necessary evil.  He needs to be practicing math because it’s a skill.  He enjoys the Charlotte Mason arithmetic more, but he isn’t having to do any written work, and it’s basic adding and subtracting.  The difficulty is in interpreting the questions.  I think that the timed math facts practice I have him doing will also pay off in the long run.

Another victory?! My son has asked to double his time for his free reading.  It’s a reasonable request on one hand because he’s able to get through far more.  I told him that I am going to keep the timer at the minimum but that he’s welcome to read for longer once we have finished all of our other school work for the day.  I am still teaching him how to prioritize his days.

Needs Improvement

The second week of school was spread over a week and a half due to vacation and numerous appointments.  Instead of having my son take complete days off when I have appointments that keep me from teaching, I am having him do his independent work.  While it could be reserved for school days, I thought it would help in the long run building habits of working on school wherever we may go, and it helps shorten our normal school days.  We will be doing this quite a few times this semester.  In the past, I switched between normal weeks and shortened weeks, but I’m not doing that this year.  I have reduced our curriculum by weeks and subjects.  The subjects are reasonably spread through each day.  Over the course of ten days, all subjects have been well covered. This actual week of Monday through Friday seemed to feel a bit tedious in all my prep work, but I think it’s because we were having to work around so many different factors.  I don’t think I can manage more than two weeks at a time like that, so I will have to alter our schedule a bit when this happens so that I am not drained by all the packing, cleaning, prepping, teaching, organizing, cooking, driving, planning, etc. 

Kindergarten Highlight

THE highlight of the week was starting ballet.  My daughter has been counting down the days several times every day for several weeks telling us each day which day she got to go to ballerina class.  She was ecstatic.  She loves wearing her ballet clothes and shoes.  She thought her one hour class was way too short.  She hates that she has to wait an entire week to go back.

The second week went smoother than the first.  My daughter is much happier with our routine.  She’s doing well with what I ask from her, and she’s making connections of giving each request her all.  She has been introduced to all of the vowels, so I think we will start on the consonants next week.  She’s improving in her 100 counting.  She’s doing a great job of staying occupied.  She’s craving outdoor time.  She had a good week.

Term 1, Week 2

What I’m Reading: Formation of Character by Charlotte Mason
This is the final book in the CM Home Education series that I need to read.  This is one of many books in my current reading slowly book stack.  I haven’t made it very far, but I’ve already found much to put into practice.  I was also quite impressed at the chapter with Dorothy’s story.  Charlotte Mason is talking about neuroplasticity except not in those terms. “The nervous tissue is modified under the continued traffic in the same order of thoughts” (p 60, Living Book Press edition).  She continues on the next page, “Such habit of thought is set up, and must go on indefinitely, in spite of struggles, unless—and here is the word of hope—a contrary habit is set up, diverting the thoughts into some quite new channel.  Keep the thoughts running briskly in the new channel, and, behold, the old connections are broken, whilst a new growth of brain substance is perpetually taking place.”

I have also spent quite a bit of time this week reflecting on some of my own choices regarding our school schedule.  I have a tendency to want to avoid dealing with stress in life.  Some stress is good and pushes us forward and some stress is just a part of life (and I’m not going to get into bad stress).  In the past when I had a lot on my plate, I usually removed something from my list in the guise of rest or needing to prioritize.  Some reprioritizing does need to happen, but I’m starting to notice where I’m reprioritizing and where I’m avoiding. In the same chapter about Dorothy, Charlotte Mason says, “habit…is a chief factor in character” (p62).  A new goal I have for school this year is to really reflect on whether we need to put off part of school to accommodate our schedule or give us time for rest, or if I’m just avoiding dealing with stress. Teaching my children good habits starts with me.

What I’m {nature} Journaling: Sunflowers
Where I thought I planted peas, I have sunflowers blooming.  I’m surprised, except I shouldn’t be too surprised.  Several weeks ago, I was studying their growth and how they looked as the greenery was growing.  I noticed it opened like the sunflowers on my deck that had recently bloomed.  It was odd, but I’ve never seen peas grow, so I didn’t’ know what to expect.  Well, they aren’t peas. They’re beautiful sunflowers.

Third Grade Highlights

We completed a full week of school with a full test run of what our schedule will look like once our co-op begins next month.  We were away for the afternoon and morning I expected plus another afternoon when I needed to be away.  I was encouraged to see that we can complete a week’s work well and within a week. Of course, we still have a little tweaking to help with our flow but we’re on track for setting our routine. 

My son loves reading out loud.  What!? I didn’t know if this day would come.  He loves reading his phonics readers, and he’s asking to read more verses when we do our Bible readings. 

Needs Improvement

We did horribly at getting up and going in a timely manner this week.  (BUT we did well in completing our work, so let’s stay positive about this.) And I let the tv stay on longer in the mornings while I was trying to get my own act together.  I think I mentioned it before that we’re using the first month to get back in a routine.  I’m going to extend us some grace, and we’ll try for better next week.

Curriculum Spotlight

We are going out on our own for history and geography this year (minus the CM geography concepts listed on AmblesideOnline).  We will be studying American history for the next two years.  We’re loosely following the Beautiful Feet Books Early American Primary list.  We completed America Begins by Alice Dagliesh and Columbus by the D’Aulaires.  I plan on adding in quite a bit of Native American history to the list as it’s one of my favorite historical subjects, and I have a lot of books collected over the years for us to peruse.  I’m also looking forward to Washington’s time as it’s been a very long time since I’ve studied that time period.  I may even spend some personal time reading some of the political philosophy essays of the time as I really enjoyed those classes in college.

We are traveling the world for geography this year.  I thought this might be the last year that I can really do something fun like this with my son.  We will spend five weeks on a continent or region.  I’m roughly following Give Your Child the World by Jamie C. Martin. I’m using book lists from her book, Simply Charlotte Mason, and Beautiful Feet Books.  I made an age appropriate list for both children.  I’m checking out what is available from the library since our holds system isn’t always reliable.  We start the lesson by finding America on the globe and then tracing a route to where we’re going for the lesson.  I read the two books out loud and then we find the locations on the map to color (my daughter just colors the whole map).  Then we draw a picture in our travel journal.  I let my son decide what he wants to draw.  The first week he said he was eating a tiger.  I’m just making a list of the books we’re reading with a small illustration.  There will probably be weeks where we try out a recipe from that region, perhaps the fifth week. 

Term 1, Week 1

What I’m Reading: At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon 
I was introduced to this author over twenty years ago, but I’ve never read her books.  Christian fiction has not been at the top of my list of favorite books, but I do end up reading quite a bit more than one would expect.  I’m glad to be reading this one, have put the DVD on hold at the library and plan to check out the next book in the series. Over the summer I really enjoy reading books I know I can finish within a week or two. I typically read one of the Grace Livingston Hill books in my collection and then move on to the latest chick-lit or something from the Goodreads shelves of the ladies in my in-real-life book club. This year I have found that I’ve really needed uplifting books. The past two years I’ve filled this in with Jane Austen books, and while I did read a retelling of a Jane Austen novel this year, I haven’t really been in the mood yet to reread any of her books. I was disappointed in my chick-lit pick for the year (Enchanted August – I don’t recommend), so I have found myself falling into the world of Mitford. It’s a rabbit hole worth the journey. The characters are shallow enough that you don’t feel the weight of their burdens, but deep enough that you enjoy spending time with them in their daily lives. I love all the Scripture peppered in and haven’t found it corny. I have found humorous jokes and loveable characters. And I’ve learned a little bit about the set-up of an Episcopalian church.

What I’m {nature} Journaling: Vegetables!
I have vegetables! Since my harvest is still in miniscule proportions, I’m easily able to keep a log of the yield.  The geranium kiss tomatoes were deliciously sweet tossed into warm pasta with olive oil, Italian seasoning, and parmesan cheese. The Italian striped zucchini surprised me after I thought I drowned it and awaited root rot. Instead, I’ve been met with tender and sweet zucchini. I’m also eagerly awaiting Gold Medal tomatoes and red and purple bell peppers. My harvest is later than friends’ since I started everything from seed rather late in the season. My harvest may not be quite as plentiful, but it has still be a really great season.

New Routine

The first month of school is all about establishing a routine.  I’m not much of a morning person, but my children wake up early.  They are allowed to watch the kid shows on Right Now Media each morning while I slowly wake up, drink coffee, and get started on the day.  This year the tv is getting turned off 15 minutes earlier to give us time to incorporate our new devotional time.  It is taking some adjustment on all our parts. 

We are also adding two commitments of being away from home on an afternoon and a morning.  I will need to shuffle around the way we complete our school week.  Typically we do academic work in the mornings with riches mixed in to break up the brain work and then finish the more time consuming riches in the afternoon.  We are losing a full afternoon at home one day a week.  We are gaining a lot in other ways by being out that day, so I will figure out where we can eliminate or move school plans.  The morning we will be gone affects us differently.  We will not be gone as long, but it’s right in the middle of what would be a normal school day.  I have decided we will make that day a riches day.  While I’ve really enjoyed using our riches to break up the more rigorous parts of our mornings, I think it will work out nicely to have a day of refreshing ourselves with art, music, outdoors, and games. I want to maintain a sense of rest and renewal even when we have full days. 

The first six weeks of school are generally following our most recent school routine, but I have goals on the horizon for my son to keep working towards more independence.  I have made a list for him to follow that tells him the school that he can do or start on his own.  I have also made him a list of afternoon occupations that he can choose from of his own initiative. 

My daughter is needing more engagement during the day.  While she plays very well on her own, I can see that she is ready for new challenges. I’m also wanting to soak up this last year of preschool (even though kindergarten will look much the same).  She’s becoming more and more eager to be a big kid, and I know these days of all day play will be full of responsibility before we know it. 

Third Grade Highlights

I taught my son how to make loom potholders this week.  This is a tradition passed down from my mom.  I’m so happy that he has found another handicraft that he likes in addition to all of the cardboard creations he makes.  He made four potholders this week and has plans to make more.  We decided we would give them as part of Christmas goodie gifts.  He also wants to help make snickerdoodles.

He’s obsessed with Swallows and Amazons.  We watched the movie last month when my dad came for family pizza night.  We had been saving it knowing that it was on our reading list for school this year.  As soon as we finished Little House on the Prairie, we started listening to Swallows and Amazons.  We’ve been listening to it for far longer than we usually do with our free reads. (Lots of potholders are getting made during this book. )My son also asked for a copy of the physical book, which I obliged since he loves seeing good books on his shelf as much as I do.  I’m hoping this will be a book he’ll want to read again.

Preschool Highlights

I have had so much fun with my daughter this week.  I’ve set up a small checklist to help order our days.  She participates in our devotional, feeding the fish, and morning self-care.  When it’s time for school to start, I sing the same song four days in a row (this week it was Row, Row, Row Your Boat), read a Bible story, read a picture book, work on her speech therapy, and give her a letter coloring sheet and paper to cut.  By the time she’s done, she’s ready for independent play.  She goes off to her room or sets things up in the living room.  Sometimes she plays next to us with the educational toys I have on the shelf by the school table. I split up our day into two parts.  The other part of the day, I sing the same song four days in a row; this song includes movements, clapping, or dancing (this week it was Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes).  I picked out a nursery rhyme to say four days in a row (Humpty Dumpty this week), and then I have her repeat the memory verse for her Sunday school.  I’m using this time to set out some kind of sensory or preschool activity.  This is just the right amount of “school” to help her feel like she’s a part of school and not too much that she loses interest.

I had two favorite parts of school with her this week.  Each time we got together to sing, she had a giant smile on her face. It makes any effort I make worth it. (Because, let’s face it, she doesn’t always like the activities I pick for the day – like the wipe clean book as opposed to a worksheet or the giant coloring page as opposed to a pirate ship drawing lesson.) I also rearranged our schedule to play outside for half an hour the morning we had decently coolish weather.  I loved watching my daughter playing with the bubbles.  She had a magnificent time.

Needs Improvement

We don’t need to improve on this just yet, but I’m keeping it at the front of my mind – I really want to enjoy my children.  I already enjoy spending my days with them, but I have times where I get too caught up in staying on track due to all the days where I throw our schedule by the wayside or where I just can’t control life around us.  I want to remain balanced by not adding too many things into our days while maintaining excellence.  What I want more than anything for this year is to enjoy all the moments of my kids being little.

Curriculum Spotlight

We are continuing with the brain training exercises for at least two more terms. We are using three exercises 5 days a week for 8-10 weeks.  I’m using the YouTube videos from whatif244.  I’m not tracking their effectiveness, but I am looking at the overall picture that my son is learning some resetting techniques.  These exercises are also great brain breaks in between challenging subjects. If I need five minutes to write out some notes, I can easily send my son into the other room to complete the exercises on his own.  Currently, this is in place of Charlotte Mason’s Swedish Drill.  I like the idea of Swedish Drill, of my children getting in physical activity and carefully following instructions, but adding in another activity into our daily or even weekly life is too much right now.  My son is training in another sport in the evenings, so this is my preference for outsourcing at this time.

Our first term artist study is Vincent Van Gogh. We are using the artist study packets from Simply Charlotte Mason.  We study an art print on the odd weeks and read a short portion of the biography on the even weeks.  I was very intimidated by artist study when we first began, but the SCM resources have been incredibly helpful.  When I’m able to find good videos or picture books, we use those too.  I’ve been a big fan of the BabyLit books for my kids through the years and there’s a good one for Van Gogh.  I also have some coloring pages of Van Gogh’s work.  I do not require my children to use coloring pages, but I offer them as an extra. Our biggest focus right now in artist study is to observe what we can in the artwork and narrate accordingly.  This is a perfect subject for our riches day as it takes very little time, but it is such a good practice in engaging our whole selves into the school day.