4th Grade Curriculum Picks
This year I’m homeschooling a 2nd grade boy, a 4th grade boy, and 8th grade twin girls. Yesterday, I shared about our curriculum picks for 8th grade and later this week I’ll be sharing my 2nd grader so be sure to stick around.
When I was reflecting on last school year, one thing I knew I wanted was something a little different for my boys. We definitely need to keep building the core academic skills they’ll need, but I also want our homeschool days to feel a little more exciting for them. We all agreed we wanted to explore more interests, keep reading great books together, and spend more time doing project-based learning.
Some of the projects are things I know my husband will need to teach them. They want to use tools, build things, and work with their hands. Even my girls expressed some interest in this. Thankfully, my husband is usually home in the afternoons so I’ve tried to leave some time in that part of the day for some projects. My husband is always building something and we’ve been trying to think of a few smaller projects where the boys can help with from start to finish.
Anyway, I tried to be intentional about bringing in some of the trusted resources we love while adding in some new things that will spark my boys curiosity and keep learning fun. My hope is this year will be a good balance between academic skills but also giving them opportunities to create and explore and grow in different ways.
Morning Time
We’ve been studying the Old Testament and have been thoroughly enjoying The Golden Children’s Bible. This is such a great Bible storybook for the early years and both of my boys have really been loving these stories. So we’ll just keep chugging along with this!
Language Arts & The Dangerous Book for Boys
I’m stepping a little outside my comfort zone this year and using The Dangerous Book for Boys as a spine for part of my son’s language arts lessons. I’m also going to be including my 2nd grader on this - just more for the activities! But my hope for my 4th grade son is to use it to help with his reading fluency, writing, grammar and just to learn about all kind of random things that little boys naturally seem to gravitate to. And there are actually a few formal grammar and written language lessons mixed in here. They’re pretty simple, but I am okay with that.
My rough plan is to read through one topic at a time and then do a related hands-on activity…some we will have to modify because we definitely won’t be building a treehouse in our backyard ha! But maybe we’ll do a mini version or this is where my husband will step in on some of these things. Since my son is finished with phonics lessons I am just going to have him read each section aloud so we can work on fluency and expression together. Then my plan is to wrap up each topic with a little writing assignment.
So, for example, the first topic is ‘Essential Gear.’ He’ll read the page to me, then we’ll put together his own little bag of essentials and his writing assignment will simply be to make a list of everything he decided to include and why. When he gets to The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World I’ll probably have him do some copy work and a written narration and I’ll work within these to help him with grammar and punctuation.
I’m definitely keeping a few TPT resources on standby if this experiment completely falls apart, but I am really hoping this approach will spark his curiosity and help him associate reading and writing with things he’s genuinely interested in while also introducing him to some new things. I’m keeping this Language Arts & Literature Quick Reference Guide on hand so I can intentionally weave in some skills as he writes and I may find some supplemental worksheets he can practice here and there.
If the idea of creating your own LA study feels overwhelming someone on IG recently recommended Turn Any Picture Book Into a Language Arts Study to me and I think it looks like a fantastic place to start. The only thing I’d add, depending on your child’s stage of reading, is a solid phonics program if they’re still learning to read and need some support.
Anyway, we’ll see how this goes. Also just a disclaimer - I haven’t read through this whole book, which usually I like to do, so if I come across anything we need to skip or add some depth too (maybe with some of the historical events) then I’ll be working close enough with him in this I think it’ll be okay. Also, I know there is a TV show, but I don’t know much about it. It’s something I’ll still need to look into before we decide if we’ll watch it or not. I have a feeling it’s either going to be one of our favorite things we’ve ever done or a complete flop so wish us luck!
In addition to this though my 4th grader will also be trying Touch-Type-Read-Spell for spelling & typing practice. He’ll also be continuing on with TGTB Handwriting 4because I’m a stickler with handwriting and these books are amazing!
I’m also for sure going to have him keep working through leveled readers practicing reading independently and with me. My go-to for these are The Good & The Beautiful Readers and our library also has a fantastic selection of leveled readers which is really nice. I’m also going to have him start working through some Classic Starts books for some more literature. I’ll get this collection through our library so I don’t have any pictures, but they’re excellent and I think they’re perfect for this age and many of these books are full of adventure which is what I’m going for.
Finally, I’m hoping to do 2-3 games a week with my son because he does REALLY well retaining learning through games. I’ve got a 2nd-4th grade reading & math Amazon Game List started with some of our favorites and some of the ones we’d like to try. I’ll just be rotating through some of these with my boys!
Math
After trialing multiple different math courses last year, it was an easy choice for us this year to go with Simply Math 4 from The Good & Beautiful. This course has video lessons and I’m hoping my son connects well with these! We’ll see! Again, I’m hoping to supplement and add some variety with some of these games…Amazon Game List.
STEM
My son has done three years of Crunch Labs and this is literally one of his very favorite things. It was a hard decision for him, but he decided he’s going to try the Eureka Crate from Kiwi Co this year. Our first box hasn’t arrived yet so I don’t have any pictures, but I have heard good things about it.
Family Unit Studies
This year I’m going all out on our family unit studies and I am also working to integrate more subjects here. For all my kids, these studies will cover science, history, geography, art & music. I am also hoping to integrate more reading, writing, and literature. As many of you know, we notebook so it’s pretty natural to add in some extra LA. Since we do these together as a family you should know I’ll be pulling from a variety of resources and adapting activities to better cater to each of my kid’s levels. What I have listed here will likely change and evolve over the year, but I wanted to share the jumping off points with you guys.
I’ve prioritized 5 units + we’ll for sure plan a Christmas unit study and we’ll just see where they take us. This year I’m feeling pretty relaxed and I’m not setting a certain amount of time for each unit. I think some of these might only take us a few weeks while others may take us a few months. One of my favorite things about unit studies is the freedom to follow rabbit trails and explore things that capture our interests. So, as we move through the year, I’ll just add some more studies or simplify as needed. And, honestly if history is any indication, I’ll probably have a mid-year reset where I end changing up something anyway.
Wilderness & Survival Skills: We’re kicking the year off with this unit and of course it’s geared more for my boys, but to be honest, Waldock Way’s Survival Unit has helped me get pretty excited about it. We’ll be using the Bear Grylls Books for my boys. For my girls I snagged Hatchet and My Side of the Mountain and they said they’re actually excited for some of the topics we’ll be studying out of the unit. I think my 4th grader will love the books too so I wouldn’t be surprised if these end up as a read-aloud. And, I think they’ll all enjoy this knot tying kit and the game Survive the Island.
Utah History: It’s high time we did a unit on Utah history. I couldn’t find a spine I loved so I am going to use this Utah History Unit from TPT. It’s huge and covers an entire year’s worth of material, but I definitely don’t want to spend that long on this study so I’ll for sure just be cherry picking in this. I’m planning to pull some of these printables out for history notebooks so I think that should be fun and I’m hoping my boy’s will love some of the native and mountain man studies. We’ll also use the Utah study unit from Road Trip Around America inside the Art Makes Me Smart membership. I also have a booklist going on Amazon. I’ve read NONE of these so take these recommendations with a grain of salt. I’ll update it as we narrow down our list.
Character & Leadership Skills: I’m just pulling this mini unit together on my own. For my older girls we’ll be using the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens and for my younger boys I am going to be using the 7 Habits of Happy Kids + these supplemental Ready to Read books (they cover the same habits, just different stories).
Health & Human Body: We’re going to primarily be doing the Human Anatomy unit inside Art Makes Me Smart. But I’ve also got The Good & Beautiful Health & Physical Body unit on hand and we LOVE their science videos so I’m excited to pull from both of these resources.
Music Appreciation: We’ll for sure be using The Good & The Beautiful Music Appreciation 2 Course. (Expected release is summer 2026 so depending when you view this - the link may not have it listed yet.) We did Music Appreciation 1 last year and loved it so we’re excited for this one! This will likely be a shorter unit study and we’ll also be pulling from the Spiritual Lives of Great Composers and the composer study resources inside Art Makes Me Smart.
As these studies evolve, I’ll try to post on IG & save on my story highlights as well as come back and blog what we end up doing!
PE & Art
We’re not a big sport family, but my son definitely is! He’s played lots of city and rec sports so we’ll just keep going with those this year. He loves football, but he’ll probably also continue on with basketball and baseball. He is also in a bi-weekly athletic training class. We also have a family rec pass and the kids all spend a lot of time swimming, riding bikes, and staying active through everyday activities.
As I mentioned I’m integrating art into our family studies this year, but we do have my son in private art lessons as well. He has a natural interest for sketching & drawing so we found him a great art teacher that’s been a really great fit for him.
Daily Rhythm & Final Thoughts
Last school year we had a lot of classes and activities out of the home that really disrupted our rhythm. They were all good things, but our schedule was just a little all over the place. After talking with all the kids, we’re all craving more unhurried time at home. We especially want to do more reading and projects.
So like I mentioned one of my goals is to keep our rhythm a bit more consistent but just add some variety with what we’re studying. Each day I think we’ll aim for our devotional > family unit study > independent work & one on one time with mom and then I’m hoping we can wrap up our core by lunch. After that our afternoons will be wide open for the kids to play, dive into projects, or spend the time on any independent work or reading or interests they’re excited about. This also gives me a little time to work and get some projects done. Most of our sports and other activities happen later in the afternoon and evening so I think this rhythm should give us the best of both worlds…more focused time at home in the morning and plenty of margin for the rest of the day. We homeschool four days a week and have a flex day on Fridays.
Let me know what fun things you’re excited about for the 26/27 homeschool year!
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