History & Geography

About this course

Fourth grade leaves the eight-strand survey behind and becomes a straight chronological course in American history. It opens with the peoples who were here first, comparing the Eastern Woodlands, the Great Plains, the Southwest, and the Pacific Northwest, then moves to Spanish, French, and English exploration and the exchange of crops and animals that followed. Colonial America is broken into the New England, Middle, and Southern regions, with lessons on daily life, schooling, trades, the Pilgrims, the Puritans, and the arrival of slavery in the colonies. The Revolution unit runs from the aftermath of the French and Indian War through taxation without representation, the Boston Tea Party, Lexington and Concord, the Declaration, Washington, Valley Forge, the French alliance, and Yorktown. From there the year covers the writing of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, westward expansion including the Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark, the Oregon Trail, the Gold Rush, the Trail of Tears, homesteading, and the transcontinental railroad, then the Civil War from the abolitionists through Bull Run, the Emancipation Proclamation, and Reconstruction. The last three units cover immigration, the Industrial Revolution, Edison, the growth of cities, the Progressive Era and the First World War; the five regions of the United States with their rivers, mountains, climate, and resources; and a civics unit on the three levels of government, how a bill becomes law, elections, rights, and citizenship.

There are 108 lessons across 10 units, with units running from eight to twelve lessons, at about 30 minutes each. A lesson reads like a well-made textbook chapter written for a fourth grader: five or six short sections under their own headings, key terms in bold, and specific numbers and dates rather than vague summary. The parent notes for this grade expect independent work with you available for questions. Each lesson opens with a short prayer, carries a King James verse, and ends with a ten-question multiple-choice quiz that grades itself. Pencil and paper are the only materials.

This level assumes a student who can read a page or two of nonfiction alone and hold on to names and dates. No prior American history is needed. The painful parts of the story are told directly and without evasion, though never graphically: slavery and the Middle Passage are described as sin against people made in God's image, and the Trail of Tears lesson gives the real figures, roughly 16,000 Cherokee marched more than 800 miles with about 4,000 dying on the way. Slavery is covered twice, first as it took hold in the colonies and again as the cause of the Civil War, so expect the subject to come around a second time.

What the course covers

• Native American regions and ways of life before contact
• Spanish, French, and English exploration and settlement
• The New England, Middle, and Southern colonies
• The American Revolution from the Stamp Act to Yorktown
• The Constitution, checks and balances, and the Bill of Rights
• Westward expansion, the Oregon Trail, and the Trail of Tears
• Slavery, the abolitionists, the Civil War, and Reconstruction
• Immigration, the Industrial Revolution, and World War I
• The five regions of the United States and their resources
• Levels of government, elections, rights, and citizenship

What your student will be able to do

• Narrate American history in order from first settlement to World War I
• Explain the causes of the Revolution and of the Civil War
• Describe what the Constitution does and why power is divided three ways
• Locate the five US regions and name their rivers, mountains, and crops
• Trace how a bill becomes law and what an election decides
• Read a nonfiction chapter independently and recall its key facts

Scope and sequence

All 10 units of History & Geography for Grade 4, in the order they are taught.

Every lesson, by title

All 108 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 108 lessons of this course. Most families already own most of it.