The Whole Year: 6th Grade

Sixth grade, the whole year, on one shelf. This is the cart a parent builds in August and does not think about again until May: math, language arts, science, and social studies in workbooks a sixth grader can actually do at a kitchen table, the five Big Fat Notebooks that explain every subject in a kid's own handwriting, and the reading that makes the year worth having. About three hundred dollars for the workbooks and the novels, less than a month of most online programs, and you own every page.

How to use it: one workbook per subject, one page or one lesson a day, four days a week. That is the floor, and it takes about ninety minutes. The Big Fat Notebooks are the reference; keep them on the table, not the shelf. The novels are the ceiling: Hatchet, The Lightning Thief, The Giver, A Wrinkle in Time, and Holes, one a month, read alone and then talked about. A sixth grader who does the floor and reads the ceiling has done more than sixth grade.

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 sixth grade is the right shelf? Five questions will tell you.