Grade 4 Business & Finance

32 of 36 lessons are MUST COVER. They are tested on the unit tests and exams, or are skills the SAT/ACT relies on. OPTIONAL lessons are enrichment. Do them if time allows. The course is complete when the MUST COVER lessons are done.

Unit 1: Work and Trade

• MUST COVER 1.1 Made to Work, Free to Choose: Opportunity Cost · unit test
• MUST COVER 1.2 A Printer Buys His Bread: Specialization and Trade · unit test
• MUST COVER 1.3 The Silk Road: Why Both Sides Gain from Trade · unit test
• MUST COVER 1.4 The Hanseatic League: Merchant Towns That Kept Their Word · unit test

Unit 2: The Story of Money: Gold, Silver and Paper

• MUST COVER 2.1 Gold for Salt: Mansa Musa and the Saharan Caravans · unit test
• MUST COVER 2.2 Pieces of Eight: The Spanish Dollar That Went Around the World · unit test
• MUST COVER 2.3 “Not Worth a Continental”: When Paper Money Loses Its Value · unit test
• MUST COVER 2.4 The Gold Standard: A Dollar You Could Trade for Gold · unit test

Unit 3: Markets

• MUST COVER 3.1 Supply and Demand: Gold Rush Prices · unit test
• MUST COVER 3.2 Prices Are Signals: Wheat, the Telegraph and the Chicago Board of Trade · unit test
• MUST COVER 3.3 Competition versus Monopoly: The Steamboat Fight on the Hudson · unit test
• MUST COVER 3.4 The Erie Canal Opens New Markets · unit test

Unit 4: Great Businesses and Their Stakeholders

• MUST COVER 4.1 The Hudson’s Bay Company: The Six Stakeholders and the Oldest Business in North America · unit test
• MUST COVER 4.2 Josiah Wedgwood and the Canal: Builders and the Community · unit test
• MUST COVER 4.3 The Kraft Brothers and Cheese That Would Keep · unit test
• MUST COVER 4.4 Singer Sewing Machines and Buying on Installments · unit test

Unit 5: Fair Rules: Property, Promises, Inventions and Honest Goods

• MUST COVER 5.1 Property and Contracts: The Pilgrims’ Cornfields and Keeping Your Word · unit test
• MUST COVER 5.2 Patents and Lincoln’s “Fire of Genius” · unit test
• MUST COVER 5.3 Standard Oil and the Sherman Act: When One Company Grows Too Strong · unit test
• MUST COVER 5.4 Honest Labels: Harvey Wiley and the Pure Food and Drug Act · unit test

Unit 6: Entrepreneurship and Sales

• MUST COVER 6.1 Edison’s Invention Factory: Turning Ideas into a Business · unit test
• MUST COVER 6.2 One Fair Price: Wanamaker’s Price Tags and Money-Back Guarantee · unit test
• MUST COVER 6.3 Truthful Advertising: The Sears Catalog and Honest Persuasion · unit test
• MUST COVER 6.4 Customer Service: L.L. Bean’s Leaky Boots · unit test

Unit 7: Bookkeeping: Ledgers, Inventory, Cost and Profit

• MUST COVER 7.1 A Ledger with Columns: George Washington’s Account Books · unit test
• MUST COVER 7.2 Inventory: Lincoln’s Country Store and Knowing What You Have · unit test
• MUST COVER 7.3 Cost and Price: Woolworth’s Five-and-Ten · unit test
• MUST COVER 7.4 Profit Margin: The A&P and a Few Cents on Every Dollar · unit test

Unit 8: Saving, Investing and Giving

• MUST COVER 8.1 A Budget: Franklin’s “Small Leak” and Planning Before You Spend · unit test
• MUST COVER 8.2 Interest: A Minister’s Savings Bank and Money That Grows · unit test
• MUST COVER 8.3 The Buttonwood Agreement: Owning a Share of a Business · unit test
• MUST COVER 8.4 Tithing, Giving and the Family Market Day · unit test

Unit 9: Bonus: Run a Real Service Business OPTIONAL unit

• OPTIONAL 9.1 Choose a Service and Plan It
• OPTIONAL 9.2 Price Your Time and Your Costs
• OPTIONAL 9.3 Do the Job Well: Faithful Service
• OPTIONAL 9.4 Close the Books: Profit, Lessons and Giving

From the course’s own 36-week pacing guide, with catch-up and review weeks added to fill a 36-week (180-day) year.

Grading: Projects (effort, careful counting and the improve-it step) 40%, Ledger notebook (dated pages, labeled columns, honest records) 20%, Unit reviews 15%, Portfolio projects 25%. Scale: A 90–100, B 80–89, C 70–79, D 60–69. Below 60: redo the project or review with help.