Fourth grade art, music, movement and life skills

Fourth grade is the notation year in music and the observation year in art. Texas PE splits into invasion games, striking and fielding, and knowing which part of fitness a given activity builds. The money standards move to fixed versus variable expenses, calculating profit, and comparing financial institutions. Honest gap: nothing here teaches an instrument or a sport. Those are a teacher, a coach, or a lot of parent time.

• K
• 1st
• 2nd
• 3rd
• 4th
• 5th

What to aim for this year

By the end of fourth grade, a child working at grade level can usually do these.

• Reads notation well enough to learn a new piece without hearing it played first
• Plays or sings for someone outside the family on purpose
• Sorts a household expense list into fixed and variable
• Calculates profit on a simple made-up business, including its costs
• Compares what a bank, a credit union and a check-cashing place actually do differently
• Draws a portrait with the eyes placed correctly on the head instead of near the top
• Works in one medium well enough to have preferences inside it
• Plays an invasion game and a striking-and-fielding game with real strategy, not only skills
• Names which part of fitness a given activity builds and why
• Plans and cooks a simple meal for the family, including making the shopping list
• Writes a real letter by hand in cursive, addresses the envelope, and mails it

Free, and legal to use

Every one of these costs nothing. The license tag says what you may actually do with it, which is not the same question as whether it is free to read.

• Musopen Free Public domain

  Recordings and sheet music the site identifies as free of copyright restrictions, over 100,000 files. Useful when you want to hear a piece and read its score at the same time.

  License: Much of the catalog is public domain and some items carry Creative Commons licenses. Verify the status of the individual recording or score rather than assuming the whole site: performances and modern typeset editions can carry their own rights, and Musopen itself notes it cannot guarantee user-uploaded material is public domain. The free tier also caps downloads at five a day; unlimited downloads are a paid membership at roughly $55 a year.

• Krita Free Free to use

  A free, open-source painting program with real brush engines. A fourth grader with a cheap drawing tablet can make genuine digital art in it, and undo makes him braver about trying things.

  License: Free and open-source software under the GNU GPL version 3. Free to download, use, share and use commercially, and the art he makes in it is entirely his.

• OPEN Physical Education Curriculum, grades 3-5 modules Free See terms

  The 3-5 band covers invasion games, striking and fielding, fitness knowledge and dance, with skill cues and assessment sheets a parent can follow without a PE background.

  License: Free with a free account, and OPEN states downloaded resources can be edited and adapted for your own students. Still their copyrighted work, published by US Games and BSN SPORTS, so adapt it for your family rather than redistributing it.

• U.S. Mint Coin Classroom Free Free to use Not confirmed

  Free lesson plans, videos and coin-design activities aimed mainly at K-6. It sits neatly across art and money, and designing a coin for your own county is a real project a nine-year-old will actually finish.

  License: Federal agency material, free to download and use. As a U.S. government work it is generally free of copyright; the Mint's own terms cover its seals and marks.

• Smithsonian Open Access Free Public domain

  For a portrait proportion study, pull ten portraits spanning four centuries and compare where each artist placed the eyes on the head. All downloadable at high resolution, all free to print and mark up.

  License: Items carrying the Open Access mark are CC0: free for any use with no permission or attribution required. Check for the mark on each item, and remember you are still responsible for third-party rights in what an image depicts.

Paid programs, honestly

Nothing here is required. These are the programs families most often ask about, with the real drawback of each one named rather than skipped.

• An actual instrument plus weekly lessons Paid Lessons commonly $25 to $40 per half hour locally, with school-band instrument rentals often $25 to $50 a month. Verify locally.

  Good at: Fourth grade is a good window. Hands are big enough for most instruments, attention holds a thirty-minute lesson, and reading notation lines up with reading fluency. A teacher fixes technique problems before they set as habits.

  Drawback: Instrument cost plus lesson cost plus the daily practice fight. Renting first avoids the worst version of this, where a $700 instrument becomes a coat rack by March.

  Suits: A child who has already taught himself something on a keyboard or recorder and wants more.

• Drawing with Children by Mona Brookes Paid A single trade paperback, easy to find used and usually the cheapest line on this page. Verify current pricing.

  Good at: A method rather than a set of projects. It teaches drawing from observation through five basic elements of shape, and it works for a parent who cannot draw at all. One book, no subscription, no supply list beyond paper and pencil.

  Drawback: Dated presentation, and the parent has to read it and run the exercises. There is no video to press play on, which is exactly why it works and also why it sits unused on some shelves.

  Suits: A parent willing to teach who wants observation skills rather than another draw-along.

• A kid debit card service (Greenlight, Acorns Early) Paid Greenlight's Core plan is reported around $5.99 a month for up to five children; Acorns Early around $8 a month for up to four. Verify current pricing and the full fee schedule.

  Good at: Real transactions with a visible balance, automatic allowance and chore tracking. Money stops being abstract the first time a card gets declined at the register.

  Drawback: A monthly fee for something a cash envelope does free, and it puts a fintech account in a nine-year-old's name. Cash is also more legible to a child this age than an app balance. Treat it as a supplement to cash, not a replacement. Note that GoHenry no longer exists as a U.S. brand; it folded into Acorns Early in 2026, so older reviews name a product you cannot buy.

  Suits: A child who already handles cash well and is ready for the abstraction.

• A youth sports league or swim team Paid Recreational leagues often $75 to $200 a season; select and club programs cost several times that. Verify locally.

  Good at: Sustained conditioning, real practice repetitions, and coaching on strategy rather than only on skills. The mile and the plank get easier as a side effect rather than as a chore.

  Drawback: Travel schedules and cost escalate fast at this age as leagues split into recreational and select. Practices can also eat the evening you needed for music practice.

  Suits: A child who wants the sport, not a parent who wants the exercise.

• Masterpiece Society Studio Paid Reported around $35 a month or $349 a year for the Studio KIDS tier, and around $47 a month or $469 a year for Studio PREMIUM. Verify current pricing.

  Good at: Video art courses built for homeschool families rather than classrooms, with multi-age projects so siblings work from the same lesson, plus art appreciation alongside technique.

  Drawback: Video-heavy for a hands-on subject, and the supply lists assume a stocked art cupboard. Subscription pressure again: a monthly fee makes you feel behind when you skip a week, and you will skip weeks. It is built for and marketed within the Christian homeschool world, so preview a lesson if you want something neutral.

  Suits: A multi-child family that wants one art lesson everyone can do at once.

Prices are approximate and change often. Check with the publisher before you buy. We describe and link to these programs; none of their material is hosted here.

What a week looks like

1. Monday: instrument practice, then read one new piece from notation without hearing it first
2. Tuesday: portrait proportion study using ten Smithsonian portraits, then draw one
3. Wednesday: sort the family's real expenses into fixed and variable, then price a made-up business
4. Thursday: one OPEN PhysEd 3-5 module, invasion games or striking and fielding
5. Friday: plan, shop for and cook one meal, then write a cursive letter to somebody and mail it

Practice it here, free

These rooms on this site cover part of the year's work. No sign-up, and they work offline.

• money — Money math underneath fixed and variable expenses and simple profit
• measure — Measuring for art, sewing and building projects
• units — Unit conversion, which real recipes and real builds both demand
• clock — Elapsed time and scheduling, the planning side of practice
• graph — Reading and making graphs, useful for tracking a fitness goal or a budget
• music — Pitch and rhythm work alongside notation reading
• patterns — Pattern structure, which is how musical form is built
• art — Composition practice to pair with observational drawing
• mixing — Color theory at a level that supports painting choices

The rest of fourth grade