THIS POST WILL NO LONGER BE UPDATED AFTER 5/2015. NEW PAGE HERE.
This is one of the TWO most mom-intensive years in MODG (according experienced moms). There’s a lot you can do to help yourself out, before next year begins. You don’t have to do all of this; any little bit helps. The biggest time saver for me is the online syllabus through the school, but the following list doesn’t assume you have that.
THINGS THAT MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE:
- Check your library and online for History Books. MANY are out of print and you WILL need to substitute. The online syllabi are fixed for the most part, though the map skills book is hard to find this year. I hear tell that the school will have a bookstore by the end of the year so more complete grade level lists will be available. They will know quickly what is out of print, right? I have my suggestions HERE.
- Look over the book levels and read aloud times for History. Check out History Read Aloud Times 3GRD-5GRD and see the book levels and how long it would take you to read it aloud. If it’s too hard and your library has it on audio do it. On audio, I’ve found Madeline Takes Command, Priest on Horseback, Justin Morgan, and a rare copy of Kateri Tekakwitha. For more discussion about dealing with a mismatch here, see this post.
- Plan for Directed Reading in your schedule. There are several MoDG assumptions that don’t make sense until you read the Writing Manual and Language Arts Overview and Teaching Tips sold by the school. The big one is read-alone, read-aloud, and history. The Berquists had two read aloud groups in the evenings. One parent took the big kids and one took the littles. That’s when the fiction happened, and it wasn’t strictly stratified by grade level. Just bigs and littles. For more details, see either of those resources. Also, “directed” reading (read-alone) was separate from history, unless the reader was a struggler. Then, getting through history was hard enough. In my family, the struggler has history on audio and the directed reading is below grade level so that she doesn’t tire out.
- Bundle your memory work resources; try to do it in one sitting. See my pretty cards for the dates, mountains, and rivers. Also, print out my Memory Work book.
- Order your blank books. If you don’t need a bunch of other stuff from Emmanuel, Barebooks.com is the best pricing. I get the “kits” that have a plastic cover and line guide. If you followed my recommendations last year, you only need a timeline book (92p) and a bird book (28p). If this is your first year with it, see the bottom of THIS post to figure out how many books you need and what sizes.
- Bookmark my youtube playlist for 4th grade. If your booklist has Wee Sing America on it, you need to know it’s nowhere in the current lesson plans.
- Buy 2-3 sewn composition books in different colors: one sewn wide-ruled composition book for spelling, one for language arts. Be sure that your kids are ready for wide-rule before you go there. This might be another year for 3rd grade lined composition books. It usually is for us. Additionally, I like these answer sheets for Saxon (We like pages 3-4 best). It really helps the kids get the hang of spacing their math problems well.
- Make sure you understand WRTR. It’s not rocket science, but it seems like it until you understand it. I have a post on it HERE. Also, in the past, the school has offered a one-day online course for parents. It was really helpful.
- Print out my 2015-2016 liturgical PLANNER booklet or email me for the syllabi one. Choose your saints NOW for reports and gather find the resources. We have a static list that every one does when they hit 4th grade, using the St. Joseph Picture Books.
- Gather the “get ahead” supplies on my science supply lists. Also, pass an eye over the bird illustrations in the science book. If they’re “not enough” for you, make sure you have an alternate resource. We’ve used Golden Guides, Encyclopedias, and just a North American bird book we found at Aldi ages ago. This is good place to put alphabetizing practice. As they look up the bird each week in the index, they have to use that skill. (EDIT 3/2015: From the Teaching Tips school publication, it seems that the bird, flower, and taxonomy cards were used when teaching this year.)
- Print your outline maps for geography like this one. The syllabus mentions using a puzzle too. I use this one and this one and there’s a printable one HERE.
- Get Draw Squad to at least SUPPORT the McIntyre drawing book. It’s JUST LIKE McIntyre (even names the exercises after him) but the instructions are step-by-step VISUALLY. Also convenient, print out my 4GRD-5GRD Art Paper. If your kids hit the wall after a while on the McIntyre work, here’s a really great group game based on a limited number of the drawings.
- Copy all your Music Worksheets, Science Tests, and P&P Study Tests. Unless you have a copying printer and intend to do them one at a time.
- Go ahead and cut out your art cards. I have an attractive, cheap way to store them HERE.
- Make timeline decisions. I have one that is cut and paste that goes with P&P and Schuster. It’s not in the Objectives or Scope, but there are instructions on “how” to do it in the back of the syllabus. Regardless, there’s no “when” in the daily lessons. We do it in big chunks as a review unit throughout the year. Maybe four times a year? Mine HERE. (EDIT 3/2015: My first version is overkill. I made a second version.)
- Check out my PRINTABLES page and check the 4GRD to see if there’s anything you need that I forgot to mention here.