Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.
This school year has been so much fun trying out and experiencing new curriculum and courses with my 3 boys! One of the new curriculum options we have been enjoying is the 4th Grade Entire School Year Curriculum from Homeschool Easy.
About Homeschool Easy
Homeschool Easy provides families with easy-to-use elementary curriculum. The curriculum is easily purchased by the grade level for an entire year. With an entire school year curriculum you receive Reading, Grammar, History, Math, Science, Spelling and Writing. If you don’t need the entire years worth of curriculum you can start with purchasing 1 month of all subjects of the grade level you need. Also, Homeschool Easy provides options for you to purchase subjects of each grade level separately. This would be ideal for some students who may be working at different levels in different areas.
Homeschool Easy‘s curriculum is almost all inclusive. Each subject has weekly and daily work ready to print and use in pdf files. You can print as you need it, or print everything at once and organize it in notebooks, so your child’s schoolwork will be ready to go each day. Everything is divided up easily into Months, weeks, and Days. Each subject is set up for you to be able to use with very little prep. Students complete the daily assignments and work through each subject everyday as specified. Some subjects in our 4th grade curriculum my son is able to work through independently. Other lessons I need to sit and teach and guide him as he completes the lesson. Below I will tell you more about each subject and the lessons we recieved from our 4th Grade Curriculum from Homeschool Easy.
4th Grade Reading
Homeschool Easy’s 4th Grade Reading Curriculum is exactly what I wanted for my 4th grader this year. It is completely literature based and so simple to use! The course is planned out for 8 months. (We school for 9 months, but we occasionally take time to do different activities, or review weeks, so the amount of content should be just right for us.) Each month’s lessons provide you with units for 2 different chapter books. The books are all wonderful, fun examples of children’s literature. Some of the books 4th graders read are Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Shiloh, Cricket in Times Square, The BFG, Henry Huggins, and James and the Giant Peach. All are fun, high interest fiction books that are grade level appropriate.
Students complete assigned reading each day, independently or shared, whatever works best for you. Then they complete the comprehension questions afterwards. There are also weekly vocabulary words for students to define and use in sentences. We usually split the vocabulary up and my son works on 2 of the words each day. The only thing that is not provided in the curriculum is the books. However, these are easily obtained for free through your local library. We already owned many of the titles ourselves. If you would rather purchase the books, none of them would be hard to find or expensive.
My son and I are loving this reading curriculum for him. I have often pieced together this type of reading program for my older son (Which was a lot of work!) in the past. Therefore, having exactly what I wanted all put together for us is amazing! This curriculum is also really easy to change around as needed. I saw now reason you can’t choose which books you wanted to do first each month.
4th Grade Grammar
The Grammar Curriculum is also extremely easy to use. It is organized into weekly files. Simply print the file needed for each week and then let your child work through each lesson. Each days assignment is one page. There is usually a short lesson and examples at the top and then practice on the rest of the page. You simple go over the lesson with your child and then they complete the practice. Answers files are also available so you can check their work, correct and reteach skills that they are struggling with. These lessons are separate from everything else and do not coordinate with the literature or spelling so there is no need to worry if you go slower or change the order of the literature.
The Spelling Curriculum
Homeschool Easy’s Spelling curriculum is very simple and organized by weeks. It is a very traditional approach to spelling with a spelling list of 20 words given each week. Sentences and Flashcards are provided to practice the words. They also give 2 fill in the blank worksheets, a crossword puzzle and a wordsearch for each list of words each week. This is the only part of the 4th Grade Curriculum that I will not be able to use right now.
I have used this approach with a weekly list and test before, and my kids struggled with spelling. I also prefer to group and practice words by spelling rules and add in commonly used rule-breaker words or sight words. For many families though this may be a great spelling curriculum. My kids have struggled in the past with spelling so we found we need use a more structured and varied approach to teaching and learning to spell.
4th Grade Writing
My second favorite part (after the Reading course) of Homeschool Easy’s curriculum is their Writing course. It is perfect for what my son needs and just what I was looking for! It is divided up into month-long units, or projects. Each month your student will work on completing a writing project, or essay. Your student is taken through the steps to writing essays and the writing process slowly to teach and encourage their writing. The first month’s project starts very simply with your student writing about a future goal (like What do you want to be when you grow up).
Each week has daily assignments, with your student completing a graphic organize (a pre-writing web), writing a rough draft, editing, and then a final draft of a paragraph. One paragraph of their paper is completed each week. By the end of the month, they have completed a good quality essays or writing project they can be proud of. The course will teach them the steps to writing a persuasive essay, an autobiography, book reports, a science report, a history report, and a creative writing project. My 4th grade son does not love writing, so having the process broken up into daily steps like this has been great for him. He is learning, and seeing what he is capable of writing without feeling overwhelmed or frustrated.
4th Grade Math
Homeschool Easy’s math curriculum is divided up into 32 weeks of lessons. The curriculum moves very quickly and consists of daily math practice pages. If your child struggles with math this math curriculum may not work for you as it moves fast and there are a lot of problems to complete each day. However, for the average or advanced math student this curriculum would work fine.
Also, there are not and examples or lessons included. Therefore, you will need to take time to teach your child the math skills needed first and and work with them before the complete the daily assignments. We use another online math program already for our math curriculum already, however, I have found that the daily math assignments are great written practice for my 4th grader. The weekly units are clearly labeled, so I can easily print the pages for the corresponding skill we are working on.
Homeschool Easy Science and History
Science and History are set up in a very similar manner. Each of the subjects are organized into monthly units. There is a guide with answers and student activity pages. The student pages give your child their assignment each day. Students read about a topic on Britannica kids, or watch a video on the topic. Science covers a range of topics like classification, minerals, and earth surfaces. The history course covers Early American History to Modern American History. Students research and watch videos and complete activities on topics such as Native American Civilzations, Explorers, Colonies, The Revolutionary War, Presidents, the Constitution and more. The History and Science curriculums are both easy to use and adapt to what your family needs.
Try Homeschool Easy
Homeschool Easy offers a free week trial of the grade of your choice. If you are looking for an easy affordable all in one curriculum you can try it now for free. You will recieve one week of curriculum to look at yourself and see if it will work for your family.
I told you all about what we have experienced with the 4th grade curriculum. Many other families in the Homeschool Review Crew have been able to use other grade levels Entire Year Curriculum from Homeschool Easy. Click below to hear how Homeschool Easy worked for them.