Fundamentals of a Good Fourth-Grade Education

“What should my child be learning in school?” If you’ve ever asked that question, this book can help.

What Your Fourth Grader Needs to Know is part of the eight-volume Core Knowledge Series—from What Your Preschooler Needs to Know through What Your Sixth Grader Needs to Know. The series offers parents, teachers, and children an  illustrated guide to the essential knowledge outlined in the Core Knowledge Sequence, including beloved stories and poems, familiar sayings, interesting information on history and geography, lively discussions of visual arts and music, and explanations and activities in math and science. Updated editions suggest related readings and resources, as well as age-appropriate questions that stimulate thinking and build vocabulary. The first grade volume also includes a section on how children learn to read.

This edition of What Your Fourth Grader Needs to Know (revised and updated 2016) features:

• A new Introduction
• Illustrated favorite poems, old and new, from Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride” to Langston Hughes’s “Dreams”
• Literature from around the world, including African and Chinese folktales, legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, the story of Robin Hood, and retellings of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and episodes from Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver’s Travels
• Learning About Language, with explanations of parts of speech, punctuation, synonyms and antonyms, and more
• Engaging introductions to world and American history and geography, with features on Europe in the Middle Ages, great African kingdoms and Chinese dynasties, and America from the Revolution to the Constitution and early presdients
• Suggestions for creative activities, as well as introductions to art from around the world, including African masks, Islamic architecture, Chinese calligraphy, and great American painters
• Introductions to great composers, basic music terms and concepts, and familiar songs to sing
• Concise explanations of math skills and concepts, from fractions and decimals to graphing, square roots, the metric system, and more
• Opportunities to explore the human body systems, electricity, geology, weather and climate, and more