Fourth Grade was an exciting year for us. Oak Meadow Grade 4 curriculum truly provided an essential , super laser hot, spotlight in some crucial areas of my homeschool, especially my approach to teaching. I felt a shift in the way my daughter and I worked together and I needed to desperately find a fix and fast because we both were no longer feeling great about homeschooling.
For full transparency, during my reevaluation period, I already knew I hold very high educational standards (I always will) and I am heavily focused on her academic and intellectual development, and this is the most painful part, but (unintentionally) it was at the expense of her joy and our relationship. Truthfully, that was an extremely hard pill to swallow.
What I perceived to be a successful style of teaching and thorough teaching materials, did not apply to and was not beneficial for my 9 year old anymore. Am I failing her? Is homeschooling still the right place for her? Am I good enough to teach her?
What’s happening?
Where do I go from here?
Here enters Oak Meadow Grade 4 curriculum and the educator’s book The Heart of Learning . The combination of both really inspired me to recalibrate my thinking and reshape our home education to better suit her needs, interest and learning style without the guilt, without sacrificing quality material, continuing to help nurture the spark of learning and above all else, keep our relationship close.
What is Oak Meadow?
Oak Meadow is a child-centered curriculum that focuses not only the academic and intellectual developmental needs of kids but throughout the readings and projects, it also gives ample opportunities for the child to foster their imagination and creativity.
How the Course is Set-up
Oak Meadow Grade 4 is written to the child with the intention of providing a foundation for independent work in the upper middle school and high school years. The course contains all the lessons for language arts, social studies, and science. They suggest a recorder for music. Art is integrated within the lessons and projects. There is a separate book for math.
Schedule/Lessons: The curriculum is broken down into 36 weekly assignments that includes all the subject areas, except math. Math is in a separate course book. There is a weekly overview that states what needs to be completed during the week, but an explicit day-by-day schedule is not provided. You will have to work with your child and figure out a schedule that best suits the home’s routine.
Weekly Assessment: At the end of every week, there is a learning assessment to track their progress. This is extremely helpful when planning for the following week.
How Did We Personalize Oak Meadow Grade 4?
Even though the course is intended for the child to work independently, this is not the case with my daughter. The soft skills needed to move through the curriculum independently are still developing, so much needed guidance and collaboration is required.
Language Arts: The course covers grammar and mechanics, journal writing, note-taking skills, spelling and researching. Also, there are about 10 literature books to read during the year. We focused on reading the books aloud – – together. We loved the sitting-on-the-couch cuddle time or (if we found them on audio), we would listen during a car ride or at lunch. Obviously, I paid attention to her comprehension, by asking ALL THE QUESTIONS and listening to her fluency as she read to me. Like, how can I not? 🙂 At times we added some enrichment like art or food, related to the book, when it interested her.
Social Studies: The course covers some American History, like the Westward Expansion. But mainly the focus is learning about your home state and Indigenous Nations in your state and/or surrounding areas. We live in NYS, so we learned about the Lenape people and how they used the Hudson River or Shatemuc, meaning “the river that flows both ways”. In case you want to know, this part of the river is an estuary, which causes the river to flow both north and south. It was an important water route for trade and connection to other natives living along the banks.
Science: The course covers human nutrition, animals and their behaviors, nature signs, and astronomy. Nutrition and body movements are already naturally embedded in our days through well-balanced meals, outside play and low-tech time. The animal and astronomy studies were mostly covered through videos, art and/or picture books and light discussions. But we did add two apps from the apple store called Seek and Skyview, one to help identify plants and weeds and the other to see the constellations. Furthermore, through our studies of NYS, we came across this magazine publication called NYS Conservationist and paid for the yearly magazine subscription.
Art: The course covers art through observations, like natural shapes found in nature; perspectives, and/or the art assignments were related to the main subjects like, science, history and english. She enhanced those subjects with art projects.
Music: The course covers music and improving your skills with the recorder. We don’t own a recorder nor was she interest in playing so, instead she began learning how to play the violin.
Math: The workbook is separate from the main course book. In comparison with other math curricula, very little math problems, but it allows the child to take their time and focus on quality, and concept mastering versus completing a huge quantity of math programs but not fully understanding the material. Further, the pages are not visually overwhelming and allows time for math games if needed. The material was mostly used for review and completed during weekends to keep her mind sharp.
Final Thoughts
We covered all subjects and attained most goals without sacrificing quality. We instead focused on learning through partnership with intention. There were a lot of happy smiles this time around. 🙂
Oak Meadow’s curriculum breathed new life into our homeschool journey, and surprisingly aided in rejuvenating my own confidence level and in turn becoming a better partner for my daughter; truly learning shoulder to shoulder with her, reminded me that this is the way I envision our homeschool.
Oak Meadow Grade Four was the change needed in this season of homeschooling. It alleviated the unnecessary pressure on this self-imposed expectation I placed on ourselves; exposure to the material was one of our goals and we nailed it!! There will be a time when intense writing or deep dive into American History is required, but that’s not right now.
Just be aware, I wouldn’t consider this an open and go curriculum. You will need to plan ahead for a more successful and productive week.
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