A first look at fourth frade

For 4th grade CC wants to study like a Roman girl would have. We've made some compromises and detailed the material. I just need to get my hands on all of it and map the lessons.



Roman children need to be able to write-
She's going to keep two journals, one for her modern self and one for her Roman girl self.
We're going to do CW Homer A. Once she saw the samples, she loved it.
We're doing Spelling Workout E because she needs a spelling program, and I need something easy.

Well-educated Romans spoke Latin and learned Greek. She's continuing the barbaric language of the Gauls which she started last year which is a diplomatic language in the modern world. She's also learning a language that is far more complex that we have the benefit of a personal tutor (brother) who has been studying it for 5 years now
First Start French and Rosetta Stone French
Japanese lessons with her brother over skype once he goes back to school

Books were highly valued and difficult to obtain. They were not consumed in vast quantities. We'll be reading stories a Roman child would have read.
The Children's Homer
Black Ships before Troy
The Wanderings of Odysseus
In Search of a Homeland
We'll also listen to audio versions of the big three in a good translation
She'll be using chunks of each for memory work this year too.

History was a fairly new invention. Roman children would not have had access to history of other parts of the world, but they would have known their own history and heroes.
Famous Men of Rome

Science is where we are diverging. A Roman girl wouldn't have had science. A well-educated Roman man may study astronomy and natural philosophy, but not what we'd call science. We're at least sticking to tangible sciences.
We're doing a unit on architecture, one on physics, and one on science in Ancient Rome. We also do Nature Study.

Wealthy Roman girls would have spent a lot of time with the fine arts so we will too.
She wants to concentrate on watercolors at home, and she takes classes at an art school.

She decided she wants to play the Bassoon. She also wants to learn the Lyre. We decided to start with a recorder to learn to read music in general which I've neglected in these kids. BB played a cello and a trombone, plus the recorder in early elementary.

Fiber arts are a practical skill that would have been possible for a Roman girl to learn. She has a spinning wheel, but we're going to start at the beginning with carding wool then she'll take a class for spinning then a class for weaving.

Oh and of course she'll be doing math. Roman girls needed math for running a household. She'll continue same math that is working for us now. Good ole Saxon. She's more than halfway through 5/4, and we have 6/5 already. She also does Life of Fred, Math Perplexors, Problemoids, and the Art of Problem Solving.

Besides all of that, she's going to learn typing, AND she goes to school one day a week.