The Whole Year: 7th Grade

Seventh grade, the whole year, on one shelf. Seventh grade is where the panic starts: pre-algebra shows up, the writing gets graded on argument instead of neatness, and the kid stops wanting to be read to. This shelf is the year built for that: pre-algebra and the math that feeds it, an English workbook that teaches the paragraph, science and social studies in daily practice, the Big Fat Notebooks for every subject, and the novels a seventh grader actually finishes. About three hundred dollars for the lot, and you own every page.

How to use it: one page or one lesson per subject, four days a week, about ninety minutes, and never more than one math book open at a time. The reading is the point of the year: The Hunger Games, The Giver, The Maze Runner, The Hobbit, and Eragon are on this shelf because a seventh grader will read them without being asked, and a kid who reads two thousand pages in a year has done language arts. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind and The Way Things Work are the science nobody has to assign.

Two more things: the custom full grade is where we build this same year around your actual child, and the $49 map is the first step of that. Not sure seventh grade is the right shelf? Five questions will tell you.