Fifth grade is the last year before middle school, and the best year to find out what your child can do alone. The workbooks on this shelf carry the basics; the novels are where the year actually happens. A fifth grader who reads Hatchet and then goes looking for Brian's Winter on their own has told you everything you need to know about next year.
How to use it: thirty minutes of math, thirty of language arts, science and social studies on alternate days, four days a week. Use the fifth day for a project or a long read. Pick one math book and finish it.
The whole year in one place: The Whole Year: 5th Grade.
Why it works: Northwind sends the orphan Leif away from a plague-struck fish camp in a cedar canoe along a wild, fjord-cut northern coast. Tides, winds, cold, disease, food, and encounters with sea life continually determine where he can travel and whether he survives.
Why it works: Sam cannot survive in the Catskills unless he reads the woods accurately and uses its resources with care. Wilderness knowledge changes his choices and their consequences, so the environment functions as part of the plot.
Why it works: Brian's Hunt makes the wounded dog's condition, signs of a dangerous animal, and Brian's knowledge of the Canadian woods drive the search for his Cree friends. Reading the animals and landscape correctly is how Brian decides where to go and what danger he faces.
Why it works: Brian's Winter changes the ending of Hatchet so that Brian must survive the Canadian woods as summer gives way to his most dangerous season. Winter conditions are the antagonist, making his reading of cold, shelter, food, and the changing landscape essential to every choice.
Why it works: The River leaves Brian responsible for an unconscious adult a hundred miles from help after a wilderness storm. Building a raft and reading an unknown river become physical and engineering decisions with immediate consequences for weight, current, route, and survival.
