It’s hard for me to believe it, but I’m wrapping up 3rd grade with my youngest kiddo right now and making plans for the upcoming year. Today I’m sharing the Charlotte Mason-inspired 4th grade homeschool curriculum choices I’m gathering for her to use.
*Post contains affiliate links; see disclosure for details.*
We’re still working through our 3rd grade year, but 4th grade isn’t far from my mind since I’m planning her year and making purchases right now. Here’s a look at what we have in store:
Our Charlotte Mason-Inspired 4th Grade Homeschool Curriculum Plans
Ambleside Online will be our spine for her 4th grade year. As my daughter moves into AO Year 4, she’ll dig into the French and American revolutions. We’ll approach this through a variety of resources, but This Country of Ours, George Washington’s World, and Trial and Triumph will be our mainstays for history.
We’ll also explore Plutarch’s Lives, The Ocean of Truth, and poetry from Tennyson, Emily Dickinson, and William Wordsworth.
When it comes to read alouds, we’ll include several from the AO Year 4 suggestions like The Chronicles of Narnia series (my all-time favorite), Pollyanna, Johnny Tremain, and Amos Fortune, Free Man.
In addition to the AO readings, we’ll tackle others that have been on our family to-read list for a while. I’m not sure about all the ones we’ll include, but I know for sure that The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Treasure Island, and Jo’s Boys are on the lineup.
4th Grade Language Arts
Like the years before, we’re sticking with our favorite language arts choice, Learning Language Arts through Literature for a gentle, Charlotte Mason-friendly approach to spelling, reading, and grammar instruction.
My daughter will be moving into The Orange Book in LLATL and therefore enjoying some classic books like The Boxcar Children, The Sign of the Beaver, Ben and Me, and Wilbur and Orville Wright. It’s been a while since I read these with my oldest; I’m looking forward to revisiting them!
We’ll also include handwriting practice through some Handwriting Without Tears Cursive books that were already stashed in our homeschool closet. This isn’t something I’ll have her do every day, but I do want to include it a couple of times each week.
4th Grade Math
We’ll continue on to Math U See Delta to focus on division skills. Like always, we’ll take occasional breaks from our Math-U-See lessons and sprinkle in some time with Life of Fred.
That means we’ll spend time with Life of Fred Ice Cream and Life of Fred Jellybeans, thus completing the Life of Fred Elementary Series before the year ends.
4th Grade Science
Science is our only significant shakeup when it comes to our 4th grade homeschool curriculum plans. Brace yourself for a slightly strange explanation here: ;)
We finished our Sassafras Science Adventures volume in early February of our 3rd grade year and have been using BookShark Science since that time. (Here’s the semi-strange part.) We’ve enjoyed BookShark so much that it’s made me curious about checking into Sonlight for 4th grade science.
(If you’re not familiar with BookShark and Sonlight, they’re sister curriculum options. BookShark is faith-neutral, whereas Sonlight is written from a Christian perspective.)
All that to say, we’re checking out Sonlight Science D this year and we couldn’t be more excited! This program will allow my science-loving girl to focus on several biology-related topics and tie in to our normal nature study plans nicely.
Speaking of nature study, we’ll continue to make it happen on a weekly basis. Some of this will happen through our homeschool co-op, but we’ll also mix nature walks inspired by Our Journey Westward’s Outdoor Science Labs into our weeks.
And, like always, we’ll keep our copies of Nature Anatomy, Handbook of Nature Study, and our region’s National Geographic bird guide on hand reference.
4th Grade Arts & Extras
Typing
One of my big goals for the upcoming year is to be diligent about typing lessons for both of my kids. We’ve been better about that in this last half of 3rd grade, but I want to keep the momentum going next year. For that, we’ll turn to Typsey just as we’ve done in the past.
Art Instruction/Art Appreciation
We selected Vermeer, Matisse, and Cezanne for our artist study this year. We’ll explore these artists and their greatest works by combining Masterpiece Society Art Appreciation units with the corresponding Mixing with the Masters lessons for each artist. This will give both of my kids a chance to add some creative exploration to their time studying each artist.
When it comes to other art instruction, we’ll turn to Masterpiece Society Studio membership so she can work her way through the courses and lessons we haven’t finished yet. This will provide a good mix of fun projects and fundamental lessons for her.
Music Appreciation
Some of our music appreciation will happen through co-op, but we’ll continue using Music in Our Homeschool’s A Year of Charlotte Mason Music Lessons at home. It was a one year course when we began using it, but it’s since been expanded to be a two year course. That made our music appreciation decision an easy one!
That’s it for our Charlotte Mason-inspired 4th Grade homeschool curriculum lineup. If you have tips or questions about any of these resources, I’d love to hear them.
Want a peek into our curriculum choices for earlier elementary years? Here they are:
