Fourth grade history and social studies

This is the Texas year, and it is the year the homeschool market serves worst. The TEKS run the full sweep of Texas history from the earliest peoples through the age of oil and into the present, plus the four regions, the state government, and the state symbols. Almost every well-known program is running world history at this point. The good news is that Texas gives away extraordinary free material for exactly this year, and it is better than most of what you could buy.

• 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.

• Puts the eras of Texas history in order: the earliest peoples, the age of contact, Spanish colonial, Mexican national, revolution and republic, early statehood, Civil War and Reconstruction, cotton cattle and railroads, the age of oil, and modern Texas.
• Explains why the Spanish built missions and names San Antonio de Valero.
• Tells what happened at the Alamo, at Goliad, and at San Jacinto, and explains why San Jacinto ended the war.
• Identifies Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston, William B. Travis, Juan Seguin, Susanna Dickinson, and Jose Antonio Navarro.
• Locates the four regions of Texas and describes the landforms, climate, and economy of each.
• Explains how the Spindletop strike changed the Texas economy.
• Names the three branches of Texas government and the current governor.
• Uses a map scale, legend, and grid to locate a Texas city or county.
• Explains why cattle drives and the railroads mattered to the state's growth.
• Describes the meaning of the Texas flag, the state seal, the state motto, and 'Texas, Our Texas'.
• Reads a short primary source about Texas and says who wrote it and why that matters.

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.

• The Portal to Texas History (University of North Texas Libraries) Free Public domain

  The single richest free source for this year. Digitized Texas newspapers county by county, historic maps, photographs, land documents, and government records, all searchable. A fourth grader can read the actual front page from the week something happened in his own county.

  License: Free to view, with rights stated per item and varying widely. The Portal's policy says plainly that copyright status is often difficult to determine and that the user is responsible for checking with the holding partner. Read the item record before any public reuse; do not assume age means public domain.

• Save Texas History (Texas General Land Office) Free See terms

  The GLO holds the original Texas land grant records and a very large map archive, and the Save Texas History program puts digitized maps and documents online. The program also runs an annual essay contest.

  License: State records, free to view online. The agency sells print reproductions, so read the reuse terms before publishing an image anywhere. Note the current address includes the archives and heritage path; older short links redirect.

• Handbook of Texas Online (Texas State Historical Association) Free Free to use

  A free encyclopedia of Texas with tens of thousands of entries on people, places, battles, towns, and industries, written by historians. When your child asks who founded the town, the answer is usually in here.

  License: Free to read online and copyrighted by the Texas State Historical Association. Cite it and link to it rather than copying entries into materials of your own.

• Bullock Texas State History Museum, educator resources Free Openly licensed

  The state history museum's resources for teachers, including free live virtual classes led by museum educators on topics such as Texas symbols, the missions, and the regions of Texas, plus online exhibits and artifact stories. Built for Texas classrooms, which is exactly the alignment this year needs. Use the for-educators page; older education paths redirect elsewhere.

  License: Free to use for teaching. Copyrighted by the museum rather than openly licensed, so check the terms before reposting anything.

• Texas State Library and Archives Commission, Texas Treasures Free See terms

  The state archives online exhibit, organized into the Republic of Texas, early statehood, Native American relations, flags and maps, the Texas Constitution, and more. It includes William Barret Travis's 'Victory or Death' letter from the Alamo, whose original the Commission bought in 1893 and has held since 1909, with a digitized image viewable through their digital archive. It also covers the Texas Declaration of Independence. Reading Travis's actual handwriting lands differently than reading about it.

  License: State archival material, free to view. Rights vary by document, so check the individual record before reuse.

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.

• Texas History for Kids: Lone Star Lives and Legends (Karen Bush Gibson, Chicago Review Press) Paid Paperback, in the usual trade paperback range of roughly fifteen to twenty dollars. Approximate.

  Good at: An affordable, readable Texas history written for this age band, with hands-on activities built in, covering the sweep from before European contact through the oil boom and into the modern era. Part of Chicago Review Press's long-running For Kids series.

  Drawback: It is a trade book, not a course. No scope and sequence, no assessments, no pacing, and it will not fill a school year on its own. You are still building the year around it.

  Suits: A parent assembling the Texas year from free archives who wants one readable spine to hang it on.

• Studies Weekly, Texas fourth grade Paid Not published on the site. Pricing is by quote through their homeschool line; ask before planning around it.

  Good at: A weekly newspaper-format social studies program written to the Texas standards, with TEKS alignment on every issue and a scope and sequence built around the current TEKS. That is exactly the alignment the homeschool publishers do not offer for this year. They also run a dedicated homeschool product line, so this is more accessible to a single family than its classroom reputation suggests.

  Drawback: It is a classroom product in tone and format, with consumable weekly issues. Pricing is quote-based rather than posted, so you will have to ask before you can plan a budget around it.

  Suits: A Texas family that wants genuine TEKS alignment for the state year and does not mind a school-style product.

• The Story of the World, Volume 4: The Modern Age Paid Text plus activity book, priced separately. Publisher pricing not confirmed for this page.

  Good at: Finishes the four-year cycle and covers the twentieth century, which most elementary programs never reach at all.

  Drawback: For a Texas family this is the collision year. It covers the modern world and essentially nothing about Texas, which is the whole point of fourth grade in this state. Running both means carrying a double history load all year.

  Suits: A family that has run the cycle for three years and wants to finish it, accepting that Texas runs alongside rather than instead.

• Bullock Texas State History Museum membership Paid Not confirmed. Check current membership levels and pricing at the museum before purchasing.

  Good at: A year of repeat visits to the state's own history museum pairs naturally with a year spent on Texas, and short repeat visits work better than one long march through.

  Drawback: Austin is a long day trip from the Houston area, so the value depends entirely on whether you will really make the drive more than once. Membership pricing and benefits were not confirmed for this page, so check both before buying.

  Suits: A family within reasonable driving distance of Austin that will actually go more than twice.

• Our Star-Spangled Story (Notgrass History) Paid Sold as a curriculum package in the range of roughly one hundred dollars. Publisher product pages could not be read directly; confirm before ordering.

  Good at: Pairs as the American half of the year if you want national context alongside the state's story, and it is written for a comparable age band.

  Drawback: Christian and patriotic in framing, stated plainly by the publisher. It contains no Texas history, so on its own it solves the wrong half of this particular year.

  Suits: A Christian family that wants national context sitting beside a Texas spine, not replacing it.

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. Two spine readings a week from your Texas book, following the era order rather than jumping around.
2. One archive session: pull your own county in the Portal to Texas History and read a real page from a real year.
3. One geography task on the four regions, using a Texas map and the GLO map archive.
4. One government or symbols item: the branches, the governor, the flag, the seal, the motto.
5. One free Bullock virtual class or online exhibit a month, booked ahead.
6. One marker or site visit a month if there is one within reach. The Texas Historical Commission atlas will tell you what is close.

Practice it here, free

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

• map — Map skills, which the four-regions and map-scale milestones both rest on.
• know — Continents only. Nothing on this site covers Texas history, and that is a real gap in the fourth grade year.
• measure — Scale and measurement, which transfers to reading a map scale.

The rest of fourth grade