My Homeschool Plans for This Year for 4th Grade, 2nd Grade, and Kindergarten

Written By Kelly S

We started back to school on August 1, and so far this has been our best homeschool year yet!

Whether you’re interested in ideas for your own homeschool or are just curious what homeschooling looks like for our family, here’s what we’re hoping to do during our formal lesson time.

When possible, I’ve provided links to the resources we’ve used. Some of these links are affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking the link.

A few other notes:

  • This year we have a 4th grade daughter (age 10), a 2nd grade daughter (turning 8 soon), and two Kindergartners (twin 6 year olds).

  • I’ve been a little hesitant to share our plans because I don’t want to seem overwhelming, or like you need to cover all these subjects. This is my 5th year homeschooling. I’ve had a lot of trial and error over the years… I never could have done all of this my first year. In addition, my youngest kids are now 6, which is leaps and bounds easier than when I had twin 2 year olds dumping toys while I tried to teach a bit of math to my oldest! If you’re just getting started, hang in there! You will figure out what works for you… and it may look nothing like my homeschool routines and plans. That’s the beauty of homeschooling is discerning the best fit for your family’s needs. :)

  • We homeschool according to the Charlotte Mason method, which values formal, structured morning lessons in short time blocks (5-20 minutes) spread over a wide feast of different topics. This means we cover a LOT of subjects, but for short periods of time spread across the week, learning small bits that lead up to big chunks by the end of the year. For example, we often read just one chapter of a book, or even one page, per week, but we read it all season or even all year long… so those chapters add up to many books read by the end of the year.

  • In general, I combine my children for nearly every subject except Reading and Math. I had four children in four years, so this works pretty well for us, and it makes it feasible to keep lesson times short.

  • We do formal lessons like this on Mondays - Thursdays from around 8am - 12pm. (My Kindergartners are usually done closer to 10:00am). After lunch, we do two hours of rest time most days, where the kids can read, play independently, and listen to audiobooks. We also use that afternoon time for going to the park with friends, taking a weekly co-op class, family time, and running errands. Fridays are for nature adventure days and sometimes performing arts rehearsals.

  • I planned everything out this past summer - I hate scrambling to know what we’re studying each week. I just map out what we’ll read and cover each week and stick it all in a 3 ring binder. Then on Friday afternoons I print out a one page timetable that tells what order I should do each subject, and how long to spend on it (i.e. 5 min, 10 min). I don’t follow it perfectly, but it gives me a starting point. On Fridays I take about 30-60 minutes to jot down my plans for the week ahead, make sure I have books on hold from the library, prepare any supplies, etc…. but I try to keep this pretty minimal.

  • I divide our year into 3 twelve-week terms, but I only plan for 10 weeks of actual lessons. Week 11 is empty to be a buffer for anything we didn’t get to. Week 12 is when we do review and celebrate all that we learned (we call it “Exam Week” in the Charlotte Mason world, but they’re not actual tests - just a chance to bring it all together by seeing what the student remembers about what we studied).

    • Term 1 falls August - October, followed by a two week fall break.

    • Term 2 is November - February, with a two week break right in the middle for the holidays, plus an additional week in mid-December where I don’t have anything scheduled from our normal lessons… we’ll just do the fun holiday stuff. At the end of term 2, we’ll do our “spring break” a bit early).

    • Term 3 is March - May. Then we take off 8-10 weeks for summer. I love taking a solid break to reset and do normal summer things like day camps, vacations, and trips to the splash pad. It’s refreshing for all of us!

Language Arts:

Reading:

  • I’m working through All About Reading Level 1 with one of my 6 year old twins - he was eager to learn to read with mom. I did AAR with my two older children and I like it, especially since dyslexia runs in our family. We spend about 10-15 minutes doing Reading and Math together each day.

  • My other 6 year old son is enrolled in Savvy Reading, a 30-minute online Zoom-style reading lesson four mornings a week. He LOVES it and literally sets a timer every morning to count down the minutes until his lesson. (If you sign up through that referral link, you can get $25 off your first session.) I’m glad this has worked out so well!

  • I had planned to cover All About Reading Level 3 with my two older daughters, but their reading has just taken off the past few months and it seems so easy it’s been frustrating for them. So I think we’re just going to skip it and focus on having them read aloud some of their school books instead, or maybe just the Level 3 reader books. (Right now I have this scheduled for about 10 minutes twice a week).

Literature:

We do literature for about 20 minutes, twice a week.

In addition, we do this too:

  • Poetry - we read the poem of the day from Sing a Song of Seasons: A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year. (I just open and read the poem under that day’s date. It’s so easy! Takes about 1 minute during our Morning Time.) We also do a brief weekly poetry study (described further under “Arts” below).

  • Every day, I take 5-15 minutes to snuggle on the couch and read a picture book or part of a story with just my two youngest - we call it “Kindergarten Kids.” (This is a habit we’ve had the past two years under other names.) On Mondays, we read a book about our US History time period. On Tuesdays we read part of a story from The Blue Fairy by Andrew Lang (fairy tales). On Wednesdays we read a book from Read Aloud Revival’s A Year of Picture Books (I just check these out from the public library) - we’ve used this list a couple years in a row so many times we’re returning to old favorites. On Thursdays we read from The Aesop in California by Doug Hansen. (This wonderful book is sadly out of print, but snatch it up if you can find it used! It features Aesop’s fables set in beautifully-illustrated California landscapes… like, the Tortoise and the Hare takes place in Joshua Tree, with a Desert Tortoise and a Jackrabbit.)

Handwriting

We do handwriting all together for 10 minutes each day. Each person pulls out their own individual work, and I stand there ready to assist/teach as needed.

  • My Kindergartners are using workbooks from Handwriting Without Tears. I haven’t found the teacher guide or all the other pieces (wooden pieces, mat man, etc.) to be necessary - we just use the workbooks. One of my sons does enjoy tracing the letters in a small box of sand some days.

  • My 2nd and 4th graders learned cursive last year using a Handwriting Without Tears workbook. This year, they’re just copying poetry and song lyrics into a notebook. This summer, before school started, we each picked around 10 favorite poems and I typed them out in my word processor and converted the text into a Handwriting Without Tears font that I bought on Teachers Pay Teachers, then printed the whole document. So I have a folder of different options for them to copy. They do 2 lines a day.

  • Mailbox Monday - on Mondays, we skip the options above and send a letter to loved ones. This is our first time trying this (I was inspired by Treehouse Schoolhouse on Instagram), and it’s been a big hit so far. I put together a box with an address book (with only addresses for people they’d actually write to - aunts and uncles, far-away friends), blank cards, and postage stamps. They each decide who to write to, and spend 10 minutes writing a card (I assist a LOT with spelling by writing words on a small whiteboard). I go back and address them all later. Just this weekend I discovered Pen Pal Clubhouse, a set of fun printable nature-themed pages to use to send to loved ones, so we’re using some of those as well.

Composition/Writing/Narration

In the Charlotte Mason method, oral narration is highly valued. This is one of my favorite parts about our homeschool (my children may tell you differently, ha!) After most subjects, the child orally narrates back to me what they just heard, in their own words. (I don’t usually write it down or correct it - I just listen attentively and then move on).

Narration cements their learning (have you ever found you understand something better after explaining it to someone else?) and develops their vocabulary and composition skills. In the first few years of school, this takes the place of any formal grammar/writing lessons, instead allowing the children to naturally grow in their own abilities (at least for my kids, this has worked great.)

As the child gets older (around 4th grade), they begin to write some narrations - I’m introducing that this year through weekly note booking.

Notebooking - every week, we’re doing one note booking page. “Notebooking” can mean many different things in the homeschool world… I’m following a method I learned about from Rooted Childhood, originally inspired by Jodi Mockabee (this video explains much more about it). Here’s how we’re doing it, spending about 10 minutes per day together:

  • Monday - the kids choose what topic they want to notebook on this week - I have a little list so they do some variety (every 12 weeks, they need to do one US History page, one Science page, one Literature page, etc.) They orally narrate to me while I write it down. We may briefly edit it together, especially to make it short enough to not be tedious to write… the goal is 2-4 sentences max.

  • Tuesday - on a piece of quality watercolor paper (I cut it down to 8.5 by 11 size and draw some pencil guidelines to write on), they write down their narration from the day before. (Only my 4th and 2nd grader do this).

  • Wednesday - they use pencil to draw a picture, then fill it in with watercolor.

  • Thursday - finishing touches - we go over the writing and drawing with a black pen (I use the Micron 05 which doesn’t bleed) then erase the pencil marks as much as possible. Then they paint over the words to create a colorful background with a light wash of watercolor. Once dry, we put the pages into a protective sleeve in a three ring binder. By the end of the year, I hope each child has 30+ pages documenting what we learned this year, all accomplished in about 10 minutes per day.

I would never try to do that all at once in one day. It’s worked well because we have 4 days to spread out the work.

Speech

  • Speech - Some of my children do speech therapy via Zoom twice a week.

  • Recitation - Twice a week, we take 5-10 minutes to practice “recitation” - learning to say a poem or other reading beautifully. We learn a new piece every 12 weeks.

Social Studies:

US History:

Twice a week, we spend 15 minutes to read and narrate books about US History.

When my oldest was in Kindergarten, we started studying the earliest parts of US History starting with Native Americans, then learning about explorers from Europe. Every year since then, we’ve covered a century of US History… so in 1st grade, she studied the 1600s, then 2nd grade the 1700s, 3rd grade the 1800s. I like to include books that cover California history in that same century, too (so when we studied the 1800s, we learned about the Ranchero period and gold rush, for example). As my younger kids have gotten old enough for school, they’ve just jumped into our lessons for US history too.

I LOVE doing it this way, mostly because it' has kept our family together without trying to cover different time periods for each person’s history. It’s been so satisfying to reach the 1900s - 2022 time period this year and know we have this great chronological foundation about what came before!

So this year we’re reading through the following books - I’ve scheduled them so we have 2 readings a week, usually just one chapter (a few pages) per reading. We’ll jump around a bit reading chapters from each book over the course of the year to lead us from 1900 - the present (except for the 3 biographies, which we’ll read in their entirety over just a few weeks).

My daughters are also reading/listening to audiobooks of some biographies and historical fiction from this time period on their own.

Next year we’ll circle back to the beginning and cover pre-1600s: early Native Americans and explorers again (and plan to continue this rotation over and over through high school, adding in more of Western Civilization/World History along the way).

We’ll also start doing Ancient History with my oldest next year when she hits 5th grade, following a similar (separate) rotation through Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the Middle Ages. (Charlotte Mason advocated for teaching children the history closest to them rather than starting with Ancient. It’s worked well for us!)

Geography

Twice a week, we spend 15 minutes on Geography. So far, this is the subject I’ve struggled to make happen, for some reason (as I write this, I know we skipped our scheduled lessons on Monday and Wednesday, so tomorrow - Thursday - I’ll try to squeeze them in.)

Most of the time, we are going on a slow journey around the world. Last year we started by studying the West Coast, Midwest, Great Lakes states, and Appalachia. We start by opening up an atlas and I ask my kids to point to what they see, related to what we’re learning about: “What states border Louisiana? There’s a big river running through Louisiana… what is it? Where does it dump out, and into what body of water?” Then we read a picture book, then I invite them to draw their own map of the area we studied.

This year we’ll cover:

  • Southern States - using books recommended in Sweet Tea and Cookies (and a few fun recipes too!)

  • New England - reading a few different books

  • Canada - we’ll spend 12 weeks reading through Canadian Childhoods

  • Mexico -we’ll spend 12 weeks reading a variety of picture books

Occasionally, we do something different for geography:

  • sometimes we study Landforms using the book Geography A to Z by Jack Knowles… they use kinetic sand to build and demonstrate the landforms.

British History

Once a week, my 4th grader and I spend about 15 minutes on British History.

This is our first year studying British History… it will eventually follow that same rotation as our US History (so we’ll get a sense of British History in the 1700s at the same time we study the Revolutionary War in US History, for example). My 4th grader and I are reading a chapter together from Our Island Story each week, and so far it’s been just delightful to learn about Britain’s Roman origins… I had zero idea that Julius Caesar went to Rome!

Math:

My goal is to spend about 10 minutes on Math with each individual child per day (so around 40 minutes total of my time). I give a few additional problems to my 4th and 2nd grader to do on their own while I work with their brothers, so they’re spending more like 15-20 minutes per day.

We have used Charlotte Mason Elementary Arithmetic from the beginning, and I love it. It’s nearly all oral in the early years, so children aren’t held back if they can’t write much yet. Each of my children have demonstrated a deep understanding of math that I never got myself as a child.

I keep being tempted to do something more independent (this does require my 1:1 attention, especially for the younger ones) but I keep returning to this series because I love it so much.

This year I’ve added in a bit of independent work for my 4th and 2nd graders - I often write a few questions down for them to solve on their own, and then they are also working on:

  • Pet Store Math - this is so fun but a little advanced for my 4th grader to do solo. I think it’s ideal for a typical 5-6th grader who can handle percentages and decimals well.

  • Usborne activity books - my 2nd grader is having fun with these workbooks

(I also bought Dot to Dot books for my Kindergartner, who was begging for a book to do himself).

Science:

We’ve spent the past two years studying Southern California nature in depth… I’ve used my notes from those lessons to help create the Southern California Nature Kids family science curriculum! So this year we’re taking a break from the specific California focus - I think we’ll revisit it next year as a family.

As a family, we spend time in nature together, but that happens mostly outside of our formal morning lesson time. Honestly, it’s been hard the past month because it’s been so hot and we’ve been busy! The rough goal is to

  • spend time daily in our backyard

  • go on a walk a few times a week around our neighborhood

  • go to a park as a family or with friends every week or so

  • go somewhere on a real day-long “adventure” sometime over the weekend. Of course I have plenty of ideas for where to go, and I signed up for Quail Mail Club this fall as well - she sends a monthly nature scavenger hunt and hike to do as a family.

In terms of our formal science study:

Every week we spend 10 minutes working on nature journaling together as a family - we all grab our notebooks and head outside, either describing something we saw earlier in the week or looking in the backyard and making observations. The kids are also welcome to add to these throughout the week (and they do).

This year for the first time, I’m splitting up my kids a bit for our science readings (because that’s what’s done in the Charlotte Mason method).

We all work together once a week for 10 minutes on a “special study” - all at the same time, they look through library books, observe, and/or journal about a specific topic (right now it’s Western Fence Lizards for my 4th grader, Hummingbirds for my 2nd grader, lizards for one Kindergartner, and reptiles/snakes for the other.)

I’m spending 10 minutes, twice a week, reading and narrating with my three younger kids - we read one chapter from each book per week:

  • fall: African Critters, Among the Meadow People

  • winter: Condor Comeback (Scientists in the Field), Among the Meadow People

  • spring: At the Seashore

Then my daughter spends 10-15 minutes twice a week working on:

  • reading a chapter of The Storybook of Science (Mondays)

  • experimental science doing a lesson from Living Science study guides - she reads the book independently, narrates it to me, then sometimes does the experiment independently, sometimes does it with me, depending on safety/ability. Right now she’s doing Magnets. In winter she’ll do Astronomy, and Botany in the spring.

Arts:

Picture Study

We’re studying 3 artists through weekly picture study:

  • Emily Carr

  • Mary Blair

  • ??? not sure yet who to cover as our final lesson

We’re studying each artist for 12 weeks. The artists, poets, and composers we’re studying are all from the 1900s - this is the first year I’ve synced them up with our US history time period.

Composer Study

We’re studying 3 composers through weekly composer study -

  • Aaron Copland

  • Camille St. Saens (Carnival of the Animals)

  • movie composer John Williams.

We study the same composer for 12 weeks - I just play one piece from that composer via Amazon Music each week. Sometimes we listen to an episode of the Classics for Kids podcast of that musician, too.

Poetry Study

We’re reading the work of 3 poets:

  • Langston Hughes

  • Faith Ringgold

  • Gyo Fujikawa (her book is more of an anthology of different poets, but some is her own).

Again, we study the poet for 12 weeks. Every week I have about 10 minutes set aside to read a few poems from their book.

Watercolor

The Charlotte Mason method prioritizes brush drawing/watercolors, but in the past I haven’t focused too much on this element. This year I’m changing that, so we are doing a bit of watercolor every day. So far it’s working well!

  • Mondays: choose one picture from Watercolor With Me In the Forest or Watercolor With Me in the Ocean. Each child has their own book.

  • Tuesdays: Nature journaling

  • Wednesdays: Watercolor Notebooking page

  • Thursdays: a lesson from Bestowing the Brush online video lessons

Handicrafts

The Charlotte Mason method prioritizes handicrafts as well, but in the past I have struggled. This year I’m making an effort to do a bit of handicrafts every day. So far it’s working well!

  • Monday: fork knitting, sloyd, sewing/embroidery

  • Tuesday: touch base on their life skills notebook

  • Wednesday: lesson from Photography for Kids

  • Thursday: activity from Rooted Childhood

Singing

Twice a week we’re doing a lesson from SingSolfa.com. These video lessons are short, completely free and have been a delight for my family so far. We find ourselves singing the folk songs all throughout the day, and I can tell all of us are growing in musical ability. We are doing Unit 1 and Unit 2 combined right now.

My children are also going to be in a musical in January, so we practice as a family at least once a week at home.

Other/Electives:

Physical Education

  • Two days a week, we’re going outside for 10 minutes or so to focus on a sport. Right now we’re spending 12 weeks on soccer. In the winter, we’ll do 12 weeks on four-square and other playground games. In spring, we’ll do 12 weeks on jump rope.

Spanish

  • We’re doing a bit of Spanish every day - around 5-10 minutes, mainly through reading poems and singing songs. I continue to struggle through teaching Spanish to my children - I really value them learning another language, but I don’t speak fluently enough at the moment to just naturally teach them. We’ve struggled to get this to click so far, but I’m continuing to trudge along.

  • One of my kids is taking virtual lessons twice a week through Nuestra Escuelita - they haven’t started yet, but I’m hopeful they’ll work well!

Afternoons and Extracurriculars

We only homeschool through lunch, so afternoons/weekends are devoted to rest time, family time, errands, and extracurriculars.

This is definitely the most extra-curriculars my children have ever done… I have a feeling by winter I’m going to be regretting signing up for so much… but it’s so hard to say “no” to wonderful opportunities!

  • As a family, we participate in a few different social groups: a casual park/playdate group of homeschool friends from church, a more formal weekly co-op with classes, and a co-op with a Performing Arts program.

  • My daughters are starting violin/cello lessons and participate in a local scouting group. They’re also taking some short-term classes on Outschool - cooking, veterinary science, and possibly more strings lessons. I love that these Zoom-style classes mean I don’t have to leave home, while they get a fun experience!

  • My sons will take a month of swim lessons this fall.

Kelly S
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