End of year progress report

Since all we are accomplishing in school now is Latin and math, I decided to officially end the year with my annual boring progress report to the local school department. Massachusetts is often regarded as a hard state to homeschool in. Oversight is left to the local district. I have really lucked out in the two districts I have had to report to: just a list of planned materials for the fall and a progress report in the spring. I apologize in advance if this puts you to sleep. I vow to make next years blog posts about James and school more colorful and interesting.

Dear xxx,

We are coming to the end of our 2008-2009 school year and I would like to update you on the progress of my son, James xxxx during his fourth grade year.

James is nearing the end of his fourth grade level math text. This has covered: numbers through hundred billion, even and odd, Roman numerals, divisibility, prime and composite, prime factorization, place value through hundred billion, rounding, greater than and less than, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division properties, terms and facts, carrying and borrowing, estimation, money, division with two-digit divisors, a review of time, calendars, and time zones, geometry, perimeter, area, and volume, fractions, decimals, ratio, measurement, and graphs.

James is an avid reader. He spends an hour each school day with an assigned book and often reads additionally during the day and at bedtime. We use a grade level appropriate writing program which also touches on literary elements. James continues to write letters, copy work and dictation. He memorized several poems during the school year and was introduced to many figures of speech, fables and legends. In our grammar lessons we worked on parts of speech, types of sentences, fragments, tense, proofreading, diagramming, and dictionary skills.


James has completed the first year of an elementary level Latin program. This he enjoys greatly and really helps in our grammar and vocabulary studies.

In science James has studied animal classification, habitats, evolution and adaptation, human body systems, and cells via text books, library books, DVD’s and hands on projects and experiments. We spend a lot of time outdoors experiencing nature and learning about the plants and animals around us.

James spent the year learning about American history from native inhabitants and early explorers to the mid 1800’s. Along with a spine text, he read a lot of historical fiction to help get a feel for the people and time periods. James has memorized the U.S. presidents from the time period studied and learned about the foundations of our government. He has also learned much about the geography of our country and memorized most of the states and capitals, something we will continue to work on next year as well.

James has worked on his drawing skills this year. He also enjoys painting and modeling. He is continuously exposed to classical music and composers. We have worked on reading music this year and he has learned some traditional hymns.

This spring James earned his Taekwondo black belt. This has required physical fitness, as well as teamwork, writing projects, reading assignments, and community involvement.

We have had a great year and we will be continuing to home school next year for the 5th grade.