By fourth grade it can be helpful for a child to use a homework notebook. This is a place to jot down homework assignments, due dates and materials as needed. If your child is struggling with any of these pieces, you might ask his teacher to spot check the lists.
It can also be helpful to have a large calendar at home to organize your child’s schedule. This includes daily homework times, extracurricular activity schedules, project and test due dates and weekend plans (for fun). By fourth grade, it can be helpful to teach your child to break down projects and studying for tests in to small pieces over time. If your fourth grader has a book report, you might show them how they can read five pages for six days and then have four days left to write. If there is a big test coming up, you might note studying 20 minutes each night the last several days.
If your child still has text books (that is a sad topic for another day), it can be helpful to color code the book covers and subject notebooks and folders by topic.
Teaching organization includes their notebooks, backpack, homework space and desk at school. If your child needs support in this area you might go through their backpack together once a week to throw out trash and organize their notebooks. It may be helpful to have an extra folder in their backpack for notes from home, permission slips and fliers from school. At least occasionally you might include cleaning up their homework space as a chore or as a few minutes of their homework time. If it seems needed, you might ask their teacher or guidance counselor to help them clean out and organize their desk.
Parenting by Dr. Rene 