Seventh grade curricula in language arts focus on vocabulary and comprehension skills. Students are required to read and analyze novels, short stories and plays, and should be taught to summarize books and chapters through essays. Other skills students are expected to develop are dramatizing stories into plays while using correct punctuation and dialogue techniques. Students enhance previously developed skills in note taking and referencing, and they learn how to use expressions, metaphors and proverbs in their writing of essays and fiction texts. Learning different poetry types as well as ballads and myths is also on the curriculum in addition to reading and analyzing non-fiction, including biographies and autobiographies.
The 7th grade math curriculum is extensive and, as well as arithmetic, includes algebra, geometry, probability, analysis and measurements. Students are expected to work confidently with integers, fractions and decimals. They collect facts and statistics released by, among others, government resources, research institutions and organizations, interpret and analyze the data and cast predictions based on their findings. The collected statistics can relate to, among others, national unemployment figures, pollution rates or even domestic homeschooling figures. Seventh grade students also learn to measure units, including length, weight and volume, and convert between metric and other customary systems. In geometry, students are expected to comprehend the relationship between shape and volume, as well as being able to draw two-dimensional geometrical shapes based on descriptions.
The main themes in the social studies curriculum are the age of Enlightenment and its consequences for society. Students look at the developments in science and politics and how they promoted industrialization and democratic movements in Europe and the U.S. During history studies, they are expected to look at the disadvantages of industrial progress, including environmental issues, slavery and the fate of Third World countries. Like their counterparts in the school system, homeschooled students are encouraged to become socially aware by watching national and local news, participating in voluntary community work and taking care of the environment.
The science study course in 7th grade is dominated by environmental issues and the close relationship between science and technology. Students look at the effects of pollution on climate and water, investigate the reasons for soil erosion and classify various ecosystems and biomes. The history of science and the people involved in it are also on the lessons plan, as are simple experiments based on observation and investigation. Seventh grade is also the time when students are introduced to the periodic table and learn easy chemical symbols, formulas and equations..