
Fifth Grade
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.
Shop our Fifth Grade products below
Great Migrations Amazing Animal Journeys (National Geographic Kids Readers, Level 3): As Seen on the National
Alien Ocean Animals (National Geographic Kids Readers, Level 3)
What Is an Archaeologist? (National Geographic Kids Readers, Level 3)
Endling 3-Book Paperback Box Set: The Last, the First, the Only
The Fourteenth Goldfish
- Life Science
- Human Body & Health
- Story / Adventure
Why it works: Ellie's scientist grandfather returns as a teenager after testing an extraordinary treatment for aging, turning family life into a comic scientific dilemma. The plot makes readers weigh evidence, unintended biological consequences, scientific ambition, and whether a discovery should be used.
The Lion of Mars
- Astronomy & Space
- Engineering & Technology
- Story / Adventure
Why it works: Bell has known only a small, rule-bound settlement on Mars until a mysterious virus incapacitates the adults. The children's effort to keep the colony functioning and seek help makes planetary conditions, life-support systems, isolation, and disease response part of the survival plot.

