[pepsionice]

I hate to suggest this...but, if you took an average 7th grader and turned to give them this assignment:

1. Read the 100 best novels of all time.
2. Spend an entire year touring European historical sites.
3. Send them on a six month-long walk of Lewis and Clark’s trail, while reviewing an hour of basic physics each day.
4. Review the entire Civil War from 1776 onto the end of the war.

You’d likely have a better educated kid at age sixteen, than this cast of characters now completing four years of college.

[gattaca]

I’ve learned a lot from watching Mysteries at the Museum on the Travel Channel. I think this kind of learning tool would work in teaching history.

[Alberta's Child]

I'll add one more item to your list -- and in my opinion it should be the #1 item on the list. This would make for a good half-year course for the January-June period:

1. Spend one week working at each of the 20 largest employers in the county.

[sipow]

Maybe they would even learn that it wasn’t the civil war being fought in 1776.

[HiTech RedNeck]

4. Review the entire Civil War from 1776 onto the end of the war.

Huh, I never knew the Civil War began that early.

[ozdragon]

While reading 100 great works of literature is great advice I used a simpler method with my children. (2 girls, now in their early 30’s and both successful)
While they were in elementary and high school:
1) My wife and I both read to them as did their baby sitter
2) Encouraged them to read the works of Shakespeare
3) Regularly took them to museums here in NY and around the country when we travelled (They actually developed a love of museums)
4) Worked with them to do 5 extra math problems every school evening so that they would develop real skills in mathematics
None of these took money but did require my wife and me to be active parents