Oak Meadow Fourth Grade

Assalm Alykom:

I have kind of a love/dislike relationship ship with the fourth grade. Compared to the 6th grade in which I also teach, it is like it was written by a different company. It has some of the aspects in which I love, but in my opinion, it was not written or organized very well. The substance is there, but the material is disorganized. The 4th grade is summarized by saying that it teaches state history and moves a little into U.S. history. It begins by having the student learn the topography of his state. The student makes a model of the land he lives in. Then, it moves to learning and observing all the plants, animal and habitats. After that, the student starts to research the people that inhabited their state. They have to do some research on the Indians and do a report on them. Along, they are reading very nice books that are related to the subject. We did some projects and reports on our state history, bird, flower, motto and seal. We have about 11 weeks left and the subject has moved to the U.S. history and the movement of the people out West. Along the way there is some nice projects that my daughter has enjoyed. We just finished making a log cabin and a covered wagon. As soon as I get a picture of it, I will put it on my blog. The thing that I dislike is that sometimes it just seems like there is not enough to do. It will have about 2 weeks in a row that just says review and teaches no new skills. Maybe, for my family this is not good. During these times, we just supplement more. The Science is kind of integrated into the Social Studies. There is not much to it. We studied the native animals and habitats in our state, a little about nutrition, and we are now studying about the stars and planets. I think the thing I really dislike is the Math. It has a large amount of errors in it. They are aware of the problem and hopefully will issue new editions to correct it. I would not advise that you not waste your money on the teachers manual. It only has answers for math. You can work the problems yourself. The rest is not answers but guidance in your teaching. I did not find it much guidance. If you have a library near you, do not buy the reading books. There is one Indian reader that you need that Oak Meadow makes themselves. Overall, I liked the curriculum. It has great substance and teaches the child learning through his own research. My daughter expressed to me that she liked the independent work. I do supplement the website edhelper. I print out grammar,math and reading worksheets to make sure that she is at a 4th grade level and to plug in work when there is nothing but review in the curriculum.