Fourth Grade

Fourth Grade is a fabulous year of maturity and discovery! Students are beginning to take on more responsibility and grow in knowledge and faith.

Bible – Students focus on developing a strong prayer relationship with the Lord. They are learning to demonstrate Godly character in situations that arise in everyday life.

Reading – Three classic novels are read throughout the year in class and for home school. Students learn new vocabulary words and focus on comprehension questions using a study guide that accompanies each novel. The novels are The Sign of the Beaver, The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Strawberry Girl and Twenty One Balloons.

Handwriting – Students are fine-turning their cursive handwriting by continuing to practice with a Handwriting Without Tears workbook, and students write in cursive for most assignments.

Math – We transition to the Saxon curriculum and spend time focusing on long division and fractions. Students come prepared to fourth grade knowing their multiplication facts in order to help them with more complex math concepts.

Spelling – ACSI Spelling is the curriculum we use for spelling. Students practice a list of twenty words each week by doing workbook pages, playing various games during center time, and then they take a test on Friday during home school.

Grammar – We use the Shurley English curriculum to classify sentences by learning various parts of speech. The Daily Grammar book helps students by reinforcing capitalization, punctuation, sentence combining and other various grammar concepts.

Writing – Students write three and eventually five paragraph papers in class, and have one major writing assignment / project at home each quarter. Formal writing assignments are graded using a rubic which gives the students specific guidelines for how their papers should be written and put together. Students also do a lot of informal journal writing to help build their skills with writing on a particular topic. They learn valuable grammar and spelling skills through both informal and formal assignments.

History – Floridahistory and Jacksonville history are the focal points for fourth gradehistory. We a history field trip which highlights the information we learn.

Science – We study weather and astronomy using the Answers in Genesis science curriculum. Students build their own weather stations and conduct various experiments. We also take a science field trip that corrolates wth our studies.