Today I’m sharing all about 4th grade!
As my son has gotten older, I’ve learned a lot more in how he learns best, so I’m changing a few curriculums for this coming school year. You can see everything he used for 3rd grade HERE and a review of our year HERE.
First up I’m sharing his core curriculum that will start to be more independent this year. I’m also sharing the curriculum we are using as a family for science and history, and a brief idea of our homeschool weekly schedule.
4th Grade Curriculum 2025-2026 School Year
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Bible
Meeting with Jesus by David Murray
This book is something my older kids do independently every day as their own Bible reading plan/devotional. He started using this book Meeting with Jesus by David Murray last year and really enjoys it, so is continuing this year until he finishes it. Each day it gives a short scripture passage for them to look up and read in their bibles, and one simple question to answer after. There is also a place for weekly prayers and memory verses. It is super quick to complete, can be done independently, and is great children ages 6-12. He uses this children’s bible that has easier to read text alongside this study.
The Mass Unit Study from Into the Deep Co.
This year our family bible study will be this unit study on the mass from Into the Deep Co. I’m really excited to use it and have heard great reviews! It goes through and covers every part of the mass and the meaning behind it with readings, activities, copy work, and more. We will do one lesson, once per week together. We might finish this unit study by our winter break, so if we enjoy it, we will do The Beatitudes unit study in the spring.
Language Arts
Essentials in Writing Level 4 (EIW)
This school year we are trying EIW (Essentials in Writing) and I think it’s going to work really well for my kids.
EIW has a short video lesson the child watches at the beginning of the week and then worksheet pages to practice the concepts learned (just one for each day.) The video lessons are super short, always under 6 minutes. I really like how straightforward and simple the lessons are while incorporating grammar and writing in one.
The first half of the year is learning about parts of speech and grammar and then it covers the writing process and projects in the second half. We will be bouncing back and forth between some grammar sections and writing sections to intertwine them throughout the year.
Lots more information on EIW on THIS post.
We all love Fix It Grammar! It is great for extra daily grammar practice! Each week there is one short lesson taught by the teacher/parent and then every day after they are given a sentence to “fix.” They have to find and mark what it asks at the top (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.), they have to fix any mistakes (punctuation, capitals, etc.) and rewrite the sentence correctly at the bottom. He started this book in 3rd grade and only does two pages per week, so he will continue to finish it for his 4th grade year.
*You do not have to use both EIW and Fix It Grammar together since they both cover grammar. We are only continuing with Fix It Grammar to finish the book and because my kids enjoy it (it is great for easy weekly review.) Once we get through finishing this book, I will re-evaluate if it is too much or unnecessary to do both before we start the second level.
Level 1 and 2 are for grades 3-5. Yes, you need the teachers guide! It has all the answers to make it easier to quickly check their work and when they come to me with a tricky question.
Literature/Reading
For literature and to practice reading, I will be having my son read one chapter book per month. These are the books he will be reading this school year:
- September– Ra the Mighty: The Great Tomb Robbery by A.B. Greenfield (This is the 2nd in the series, he read the first last year and loved it!)
- October– Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
- November– Encyclopedia Brown: Super Sleuth by Donald J. Sobol
- December– Jack and the Red Giant by Amanda Eastep
- January– Percy Jackson: The Lightening Thief by Rick Riordan
- February– Painting the Game by Patricia MacLachlan
- March– The Train to Impossible Places by P.G. Bell
- April– Detectives in Togas by Henry Winterfeld
- May– Holes by Luis Sachar
After finishing each book, he will complete a simple book report on an envelope and fill in this Story Elements page to put inside. Check out here how we created the Envelope Accordion book reports to watch their progress over the school year. My favorite!
Handwriting
The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting Level 4
We are using Level 4 handwriting from The Good and the Beautiful for continuing cursive. I really love the way they teach cursive and he did so well with the first book last year! He will continue his cursive practice with level 4 independently, doing one page about 3 days per week.
Spelling
Evan Moore Building Spelling Skills Grade 4
He has used Evan Moore Building Spelling Skills since second grade and it works really well for him, so we are continuing with grade 4. We do the “cover and spell” as a pre-test at the beginning of the week, copies any words he misspelled, then completes one page per day to practice the spelling words throughout the week. (If he spells all the words correctly at the beginning of the week, I let him skip the practice pages and this is a huge incentive to try his best!)
Math
This year we are switching from The Good and the Beautiful Math to Teaching Textbooks. My daughter switched halfway through the school year last year and we fell in love with it! He did fine with TGTB, but the lessons were getting very lengthy, so I asked him if he wanted to stick with it or switch to Teaching Textbooks. He immediately said he wanted to try TT!
Teaching Textbooks is done independently on the computer (they do have printed textbook options too.) At the beginning of each lesson is a short video teaching the concepts, a few practice problems, and then a ton of review (which I love.) It spirals and comes back to concepts they have learned frequently and has a short quiz every 10 lessons or so.
Even though it is done independently, I get an email notification every day that lets me know the lesson they completed and the grade they got. I can go in to check anything and print additional worksheets for more practice. I have them complete one lesson per day.
*You can try the first 15 lessons for free to see if it is a good fit for your family.
We have a small Chromebook laptop the kids use for any schoolwork and she is easily able to pull it out herself, login, and get her lessons done independently. (Favorite headphones)
THIS graph paper has been super helpful to use as scratch paper alongside her lessons.
Science
You might have seen me share this science curriculum yesterday that we will be using as a family this year and I’m so excited! It is open & go, has lots of hands-on experiments, and multiple topics covered (not just the same unit for an entire year.) We will be starting with the science 3A book this fall that covers motion, weather, and animal survival.
Every unit has fun comic book stories to introduce the topic, colorful lessons and information, questions to answer, and so many simple experiments using household items. (Recommended for ages 8-10)
I think all my kids will love doing this together and it is doable for me without a ton of prep work. I only got one book for us to share, and they will use their own Schoolnest Notebooks to draw and answer questions. If we enjoy this curriculum, we will continue in the spring with the second book (3B) that covers forces, the atmosphere, and traits.
*You can see many more sample pages on their website.
History
Unfolding Ancient History- Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece by Little School of Smiths
This school year we are studying Ancient History! I have been working on a new curriculum coming soon to my shop that will cover Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Each guide will be 6 weeks long and use these amazing fold out books (Unfolding the Past: Ancient Egypt for Kids .) If you are familiar with my other history guides, these will be very similar! Lots of great books to read, notebooking prompts, projects, art, recipes, and more!
Ancient Egypt is available now! The others will follow during the school year. More details and photo examples to come soon!
Foreign Language- Spanish
Homeschool Languages Spanish 1
This past year we started using this Spanish program from Homeschool Languages and love it! It is so fun and interactive, with lots of games, videos, songs and stories to leam how to speak words and phrases in Spanish. They also offer other foreign language curriculums to choose from: French, Portuguese, Italian, and German.
We have the physical box for Spanish 1 and I highly recommend it! It comes with everything you need, beautifully made, and ready to use!We will continue it next school year. Each lesson is fairly short taking just about 15-20 minutes. We try to do 1-2 lessons per week and review/practice with the workbook on the days in between.
*You can try the first 10 lessons for FREE to see if it is a good fit for your family! Use this LINK!
That’s everything we are using for 4th grade! It’s going to be a great year!
Schedule:
All my son’s core curriculum (Math, LA, Spelling, Handwriting) we like to try and have completed before lunch.
These independent checklists are the biggest help in our homeschool, especially with teaching multiple kids/grade levels. He pulls out his checklist first thing when starting school each day and knows exactly what to get done on his own. Then I will check his work and help him with any lessons for LA and Math.
In the afternoon we have a reading time for 30 minutes and then complete our science or history studies together as a family. This year we are trying more of a large block schedule for history and science and I’m super excited! For the first 6 weeks of the school year, we will focus on history ONLY! After 6 weeks we usually take a week off, then we will study ONLY science for the next 6 weeks, etc.
If you missed it, yesterday I shared everything we are using for Kindergarten and 2nd grade. Tomorrow I’ll be sharing my daughter’s 6th grade curriculum!
4th Grade Curriculum Round Up:
Bible- The Mass Unit Study- Into the Deep
Language Arts- EIW Level 4
Chapter Books & Book Reports
Handwriting- Level 4 The Good and the Beautiful
Spelling- Evan Moore Building Spelling Skills
Math- Teaching Textbooks Math 4
Science- Beast Academy Science Book 3A
History- Little School of Smiths Unfolding Ancient History (Ancient Egypt coming first this summer!)
Foreign Language- Homeschool Languages Spanish 1
Do you think teaching textbooks is good for neurodivergent kiddos? We need to switch from TGTB as well and I’m struggling finding something
I’m not sure, but possibly! You can try the first 15 lessons for free to try it out and see if it works best for your kids!
We’ve absolutely loved your history curriculum for early American history – my kids were begging to do it each day. I love how simple it is for me to prepare for, but also how engaging/on their level it is. I adore studying history and I’m so glad it has helped them fall in love with it too! We can’t wait for your Ancients studies!!
Thanks for sharing, I love hearing your take on different curricula. I was wondering what age you have your kids start a typing program?
I usually start in 3rd grade and we use the free lessons from typing.com
I enjoy seeing your yearly curriculum picks and recaps! We are also using the same exact Bible/Religion materials, what a coincidence! Also, to go along with Teaching Textbooks we’ve used Math Minutes workbooks as a supplement and have found it to be very helpful, I love having a paper resource that only takes a few short minutes and still goes along with what they are learning in TT. Looking forward to the release of your new History Lessons!
We have been using The Good and Beautiful. Last year we were on Level 3. I looked at the Table of Contents for Teaching Textbooks, Level 4. It seems at least the first 50 lessons are repeats/review of what we learned in Level 3 of TGTB. Would you agree? Does that seem to work for your 4th grader? Is TGTB more advanced?
Yes, TGTB is a little more advanced than Teaching Textbooks and the first part of the lessons are review from the previous year before you learn new concepts. For my kids, that has been great to review many things they have learned and get more practice if they struggled with anything before. It has also been a great confidence booster if they think it is “easy” at first!