Computer Skills

About this course

Fourth grade covers a wide sweep of practical computer work in eight units. Your student sorts hardware into input, output, and storage devices, then studies the CPU and RAM, with the RAM lesson worked out at real length using the desk analogy and explaining why a machine slows down and freezes when memory fills up. The operating system unit covers the desktop and icons, creating and saving files, organizing folders, file extensions such as .docx and .jpg and what they tell the computer, and using built-in search to find a file that has gone missing. Keyboarding gets twelve lessons of its own, moving row by row through home, top, bottom, and number keys, then Shift, punctuation, three graded speed-practice lessons measured in words per minute, an accuracy lesson, and a full typed paragraph.

The word processing unit is a step-by-step tour of a document: opening one, editing with the cursor, bold and italic and underline, font size and style, paragraph alignment and spacing, spelling and grammar check and what the red and blue wavy lines mean, inserting and resizing an image, headers and footers, and printing. A spreadsheet unit follows the same pattern with rows and columns and cells, entering data, formulas that begin with an equals sign, the SUM and AVERAGE functions, building bar and line and pie charts, and sorting. The coding unit stays block-based and conceptual, covering algorithms, loops, conditionals, variables, debugging, and building a simple program. Two units handle internet safety and digital citizenship: browsers, safe searching, personal information, cyberbullying, digital footprint, screen-time balance, copyright and giving credit to sources, privacy settings, and a closing lesson on using technology in a way that honors God and guards the heart.

There are 72 lessons in 8 units, about 25 minutes each, and every lesson ends with a ten-question quiz that grades itself. Be aware that most fourth-grade lessons are short, usually a single clear paragraph explaining the concept, and the activity prompts are general (practice and explore this skill) rather than scripted step by step. That means the reading alone will not carry the year. This grade works best when you sit down with your student and actually open the program being described, whether that is Word or Google Docs, Excel or Google Sheets, and walk through the buttons together. You will want a computer with a real keyboard, a word processor, a spreadsheet program, a printer for one lesson, and internet access for the block-coding work.

What the course covers

• Input, output, and storage devices
• The CPU, RAM, and why computers slow down
• Operating systems, desktop icons, and file extensions
• Organizing, saving, and searching for files
• Row-by-row keyboarding, speed in words per minute, and accuracy
• Word processing: formatting, images, headers and footers, printing
• Spreadsheets: cells, formulas, SUM and AVERAGE, charts, and sorting
• Coding concepts: algorithms, loops, conditionals, variables, debugging
• Browsers, safe searching, and personal information
• Cyberbullying, digital footprint, copyright, and privacy settings

What your student will be able to do

• Identify hardware by its job and explain what RAM does
• Save, organize, and locate files, and read what a file extension means
• Type a full paragraph without looking down and measure words per minute
• Format a document with headings, images, and a header or footer, then print it
• Build a spreadsheet that uses SUM or AVERAGE and turn it into a chart
• Explain loops, conditionals, and variables and use them in a block program

Scope and sequence

All 8 units of Computer Skills for Grade 4, in the order they are taught.

Every lesson, by title

All 72 lesson titles are listed here — nothing is withheld until you download. Open a unit to read its contents.

One whole lesson, exactly as it comes

This is a real lesson taken from the middle of the course — the teaching text, the practice, the homework, and the first three quiz questions with their answers. It is not a marketing excerpt.

What you will need

Drawn from the materials named across all 72 lessons of this course. Most families already own most of it.