4th Grade Curriculum: Plan With Me 

I’m not confident in giving advice about learning disabilities really but we have our own struggles here too. The notebooks I designed originally to keep my oldest on track (ADD) but they’ve turned out to benefit everyone. The thing that popped into my head was the classical methods levels: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Maybe your son is still in the grammar stage and that’s why you’re thinking he’s aligning with Will’s work. This stage is still laying their foundations. It is marked by repetition and giving them information and not expecting critical or abstract thought and therefore assignments. I’ll need to do a video on this topic because it’s actually really helpful for us to marry it with the RC resources. You can find videos from the creator of the well trained mind that are helpful. Again, I’m certainly no expert on these challenges but just some thoughts that popped into my head.

He’s next up!

Oh I hadn't looked into Truth Quest! I just did and it sounds great! It sounds like their is a list of books to choose from which is perfect! I'm thinking of your 7 year old. I like the Classical stages to help me set expectations for work. She would fall into the Grammar stage which would rule out expecting abstract and critical thought and instead focus on giving her information and building blocks for learning. For me I interpret that as focusing on hard skills like phonics, vocabulary, spelling, basic math facts and concepts, observational science, handwriting, and grammar. Any assignments are going to be prompted. I'm not expecting original thought at this stage. So, I'm thinking through that lens when I'm deciding which notebooking pages to use and how. Also, it can't take too long at that age. I'm a fan of shorter lessons. Once I've set my daily activities I do require that work be done. If it's not done that day for some reason we pick up where we left off the next day. If you're using the RC method of reading history, science, or literature books to cover those subjects in turn there are really only four major areas to cover each day; reading instruction (a guided reading lesson), writing (spelling & copywork), math (1 lesson daily), and independent reading (to cover additional subjects, probably only like 15 minutes worth is required). I am known to make the kids do any unfinished work on Saturday or Sunday but I'm mean. Every once in a while I may have a catch up day where no new work is assigned and they just catch up if they are behind for some reason and if this is happening often I know I need to adjust something. The key at this age is repetition and routine. If she thinks the McGuffey's are boring I would think about gamifying some portion of your lessons. If you look through my McGuffey playlist you'll see me doing that with my own kids. If you don't want to use McGuffey I'd still come up with some sort of guided reading time where you are having her read aloud and you are specifically teaching her the more advanced phonograms and word parts but she'll probably think it's boring no matter what you pick lol! Lots of people like Explode the Code but we've never personally used it. It sounds like she's reading some pretty advanced books already so that's a good sign. You've probably already completed some sort of phonics program with her.

@@landofkakiakahomeschool thank you so much for your thorough response! You are such an encouraging and genuine mom!

In the online version go to the core reading list page and scroll all the way to the bottom and click on Bonus Materials. Then scroll down to Extra Reading. You'll find those science articles there.

You know how they get!