Rating: 
Summary: A must have
Review: 'What your first grader needs to know' is by far the best book that I have purchased for homeschooling. I believe it's a must have for every homeschooling family wondering if they are covering what they should. Along with non-homeschooling families curious if their child is where he or he should be at in the school system.It goes over everything your child needs to know in the first grade, breaking it up into sections by subject. It not only explains to you what your child should know, but gives you pointers on how you can help your child learn and achieve the first grade goals. Many thanks to the author of this great book for putting everything I need to know to teach my child, under one cover.
Rating:
Summary: A must have
Review: 'What your first grader needs to know' is by far the best book that I have purchased for homeschooling. I believe it's a must have for every homeschooling family wondering if they are covering what they should. Along with non-homeschooling families curious if their child is where he or he should be at in the school system. It goes over everything your child needs to know in the first grade, breaking it up into sections by subject. It not only explains to you what your child should know, but gives you pointers on how you can help your child learn and achieve the first grade goals. Many thanks to the author of this great book for putting everything I need to know to teach my child, under one cover.
Rating:
Summary: very helpful, informative and complete
Review: As a recent homeschooler, this acts as an exhaustive guideline for the first grade cirriculum covering all subjects. It is a cirriculum that takes a subject and builds on that idea or concept over a course of the primary years.
Rating:
Summary: The series of "what your first (2nd, 3rd...)" are excellent
Review: As an immigrant from a non-English speaking country, I found this is the best series of the knowledge book for my daughter and myself. As the contents showed, the book covers every aspect a grader student needs to know (solid and advanced). My daughter is in her 3rd grader and we read together all most every evening from book one to three. Not only she knows a lot from these books and superisingly answer "wild" questions in her class, I learnt a lot from these books regarding to the western (American) history which I missed during my grader education. Very enjoyable books to read with!!!! It worths every penny spent!
Rating: 
Summary: What Your First Grader Needs to Know: Fundamentals of a Good
Review: Besides the premise of some upper-middle class white guy dictating our children's values, there's much to question here in the nitty gritty. I open up the pages randomly and find things that kids shouldn't be being taught, at least not like this: page 135 under the heading "THE FIGHT GOES ON
"The Indians on the land roamed freely, hunting buffalo and other animals. The European settlers wanted to stay in one place on the land, so they could farm. They fought the Indians for new land when they had to. Both sides were hurt, and began to hate one another. The Indians were forced to move again and again. Some struck back fiercely and made the settlers hate them even more." Break it down:
"The Indians on the land roamed freely, hunting buffalo and other animals". Well, relative to Euro folks land ownership and deeds, it was "freely", but they did have territories and use-rights between/among tribes.
"The European settlers wanted to stay in one place on the land, so they could farm." Europeanness treated as the norm, wouldn't you say?
"They fought the Indians for new land when they had to". What? When God ordered them to? Why'd they "have" to? Explain...
"Both sides were hurt, and began to hate one another."
OK, OK, this is for 6 year-olds, yes, we have to keep it simple, but where's the agency here? Who pushed who?
"The Indians were forced to move again and again."
Yea, true enough, but why don't we read this in the active voice? Who forced them?
"Some struck back fiercely and made the settlers hate them even more."
Ohhhh, there's the active voice!!! Then Indians "struck" and "made...hate".
I'm not an indigenous people's activist, I'm just someone who cares about education. The passage above was chosen at random. But wow, it's ridiculous! While I agree that maybe 1st grade is a bit young for doing studies of genocide, c'mon, we can do better than this type of whitewash!
Rating: 
Summary: A great idea in theory, but dated and culturally-biased.
Review: Despite my initial interest in this series, I am disappointed (and somewhat annoyed) with "What Your First Grader Should Know" because it seems to perpetuate much of what I learned in the 1950's and 60's that many educators now feel is dated. My reaction is that it is white middle-class male biased, and I know that many educators and parents are trying to get away from this perspective given our global, multicultural society. For example, there are several stories in the "language and literature" section. Of these, the main character is male in approximately 19 of these and female in approximately 7. Among the stories about girls are the traditional Sleeping Beauty, Rumplestiltskin, and Rapunzel, and, of course, Hansel and Gretel, in which girls and women are portrayed as victims and nasty witches. Admittedly, some of the stories about the boys don't show them in a particularly good light either. There are so many more stories in our culture that portray girls and boys in much more realistic and progressive ways that it's very sad to perpetuate these stereotypical ones in what is being sold as an educational book. In the "history and geography section," there is a part on "Slavery Comes to the Colonies." The first paragraph reads, "The first black people who came to Jamestown were not exactly slaves. In 1619 a ship arrived from Jamestown carrying people from Africa. These people had been taken from their homes and forced to get on a ship that brought them to America. They were sold to the Virginia Settlers and they were made to work, usually on farms. But after they worked for a number of years, they were allowed to go free. When they were free, some of them bought land where they could farm and make their homes." Not exactly slaves?!? How is forcibly taking people from their families and homeland and forcing them to work (under what I learned were nasty, dehumanizing conditions)not called slavery? Later in this section, the authors say that "Slaves have no freedom. They have no rights. To take away someone's freedom is to treat someone like a thing, not a human being -- and that is absolutely wrong." I certainly agree with this statement yet don't understand how the authors could state that the first Africans in Jamestown were "not exactly slaves." It implies that forcing the Africans to come to Jamestown was not "exactly wrong." That's not what we're teaching our children. The authors have made some attempts to be less biased than the books that I grew up with, but not enough for my taste. There are pictures of girls and women in the book. The section on scientists mentions 2 women scientists and 3 men scientists. Every now and then, the authors include a story or poem written by someone from an African, Hispanic, or other non-white culture, but the book is clearly dominated by white culture. I found it helpful to know what kind of math my first grader should know. My conclusion about this book is this: If people decide to use this book to teach their children, I recommend that they be careful about the bias in the book and screen the sections carefully before they read them to their children. I wouldn't expect my female or non-white children to feel like a particularly valued or central part of U.S. culture from reading (or listening to)this book (despite the fact that over half of the population is female and whites are increasingly becoming the minority). Parents can certainly use the book to teach their children to be critical thinkers. We've used the section on slavery to teach our children to be critical thinkers -- not to believe everything that they read, that much of what is written is culturally-biased, and that they should feel free (perhaps even obligated) to say when they feel that something they read or hear is biased and diminishes any person or group (intentionally or unintentionally). This, indeed, has been a very important lesson that came out of this book for our children.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Overview
Review: Great springboard book to help if you're a homeschooler or trying to supplement your child outside of the classroom. Language and Literature: Plenty of stories and poetry to read to your child and get them started. Weak in the phonics area. I would recommend a good phonics primer - Phonics Pathways by Dolories Hiskes (awesome and inexpensive resource and it will get your child reading fast). Mathematics: Simple progression in math skills. I like the suggestions on manipulatives and games to do with your child, they make the learning process more fun for the child. Science: Braod overview of many sciences. Good things to start talking about with your child before a trip to the local zoo or library to pick up more in depth information. This book is not meant to be a complete curriculum for teaching your child, but is a nice supplement. I like the stories, poems and music. It's a great portable all in one book. The notes to parents are helpful in finding ways to teach each subject.
Rating:
Summary: Good Overview
Review: Great springboard book to help if you're a homeschooler or trying to supplement your child outside of the classroom. Language and Literature: Plenty of stories and poetry to read to your child and get them started. Weak in the phonics area. I would recommend a good phonics primer - Phonics Pathways by Dolories Hiskes (awesome and inexpensive resource and it will get your child reading fast). Mathematics: Simple progression in math skills. I like the suggestions on manipulatives and games to do with your child, they make the learning process more fun for the child. Science: Braod overview of many sciences. Good things to start talking about with your child before a trip to the local zoo or library to pick up more in depth information. This book is not meant to be a complete curriculum for teaching your child, but is a nice supplement. I like the stories, poems and music. It's a great portable all in one book. The notes to parents are helpful in finding ways to teach each subject.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Information!
Review: I found this book very interesting & helpful. My son & I love sitting & reading it together. Besides new information, it also has a lot of old standbys. Very organized, & colorful pictures. Creative & inspiring! You can't go wrong with purchasing this book, whether you're a parent who homeschools (as I am) or a parent who just likes to be very involved in your child's learning.
Rating:
Summary: Very good home schooling resource
Review: I just discovered this series and am so happy I did! Pulling together a mix of materials for our home school curriculum has been quite overwhelming. This book provides a design that I can use to structure my other home school materials into a rich, well-organized curriculum. I love the layout of the book, with its well written stories in many subjects such as literature, history, and geography, just to name a few. This book provides a wonderful foundation for our first year of home schooling. I loved it so much, I immediately purchased the 2nd and 3rd grade volumes as well. I highly recommend this series to all home schooling families but most especially to those just starting out on their home schooling journeys.
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