5th grade, the whole year, on one shelf. Fifth grade is the last year before middle school and the best year to find out what your child can do alone. This shelf is the floor for every subject, the books a ten-year-old finishes without being asked, and the science that comes in through Hatchet and the Mars rovers instead of a chapter test. About three hundred dollars for the workbooks and the books, and you own every page.
How to use it: Math thirty minutes, language arts thirty, science and social studies on alternate days, four days a week. The fifth day is a project or a long read. Hatchet is the first book; a kid who reads it will read Brian's Winter and Julie of the Wolves on their own, and at the end of that they know more field biology than most adults. The Number Devil is the math book they will not know is a math book.
Two more things: the custom full grade is where we build this same year around your actual child instead of a grade level, and the $49 map is the first step of that. Not sure this is the right shelf? Five questions will tell you.
Why it works: Spirit and Opportunity have a mission, a deadline, mechanical limits, and years of surprises. Following the rovers and lead scientist Steven Squyres turns Martian geology, water evidence, and robotic engineering into the causes of the suspense.
Why it works: Science Comics: Human Spaceflight turns the race between the United States and Soviet Union into a visual history that moves from first orbit and Moon landing to international work in an orbital laboratory. Rockets, orbital speed, microgravity, and daily-life design problems explain both the rivalry's milestones and the later cooperation.
Why it works: Lost without food or a compass, Miyax survives by applying her father's teachings and closely reading an Arctic wolf pack and the tundra around her. The wilderness and animal behavior continually change her choices, while the pack's acceptance of a person belongs to a fictional survival story.
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.
