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Summary: important supplement to school
Review: Having done the previous Core books, I highly recommend this series to every parent. I purchase them in the summer before their grade and brief them on the important stuff. As the school year progresses I use the book to supplement what the teacher is teaching, and sometimes go beyond with our own projects. All parents should use these books as a guideline as to what their children are learning. If they don't learn a certain thing... get involved. The library is a fascinating place...besides you'll share something with your children. Good Luck:)
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Summary: Quizzes & Worksheets for the Book
Review: I agree with previous reviews (e.g. review by Kathryn Behm). Core Knowledge "What Your ?st Grader Needs To Know" books need quizzes and worksheets to help the students retain the learned information.Here is a website that provides quizzes and worksheets based on Core Knowledge Curriculums:
http://www.kwizNET.com/
Rating:
Summary: Quizzes & Worksheets for the Book
Review: I agree with previous reviews (e.g. review by Kathryn Behm). Core Knowledge "What Your ?st Grader Needs To Know" books need quizzes and worksheets to help the students retain the learned information. Here is a website that provides quizzes and worksheets based on Core Knowledge Curriculums:
http://www.kwizNET.com/
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Summary: A must for every parent of a 2nd grade child
Review: I have the complete set of these books, from kindergarten through 6th grade, and I really recommend them all. The 2nd grade book contains poetry (including "The Night Before Christmas), stories (including a section from Charlotte's Web), American tall tales (including Paul Bunyan), Myths from Ancient Greece (10 stories in all), Learning About Language (nouns, verbs, sentences, etc.), and Familiar Saysings and their origins. And that's just the language section. History and geography, visual arts, mathematics, sciences and music are also included in this book. I especially like the history sections in these books. In the 2nd grade book, Civilizations of Asia and Ancient Greece are particularly interesting, with lots of great pictures. The religions of the cultures involved are discussed in a matter-of-fact and respectful manner. The section on ancient Greek politics leads right into the section in American History and democracy. The next logical step is to discuss slavery in the United States, and important facts of the civil rights movement are explained. Civil rights heroes like Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks are given attention, and overall it is done with a proper amount of emphasis, and ends on the positive note of changes and improvements in our culture, rather than stopping with the Civil War and leaving it at that. A basic overview of what a 2nd grader should know in terms of math is included, along with illustrations and details of the various mathematical concepts. This is not meant to be a complete math text by any means, but more of a checkout point. Anything the child is behind in can then be noted and remedied, and the basic concepts are there so the parents at least can figure out what needs to be taught. I find the science and visual arts sections to be just a brushover of what should be covered. I only use this information as a starting point, and I find other materials to back these subjects up. This book is very good as part of the overall Core Knowledge curriculum. By itself, it is an incomplete curriculum for a 2nd grader, I think, but it is very good in terms of history, and for the other subjects, I think it is a great starting point. Whether your child is homeschooled, or goes to school outside the home, I think this is a good book to have around, and the entire Core Knowledge series is a sensible starting point for a homeschooler who creates their own curriculum, like I do. I think for all other parents, it is very important to have this book, in order to fill in any gaps in your child's education.
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Summary: What Your Second Grader Needs To Know, etc.
Review: I highly recommend this entire series of books for all parents and students - publiclly, privately or independently schooled. Very logical and resourcful.
Rating: 
Summary: A useful book, but...
Review: I LOVE the CORE KNOWLEDGE SERIES! I use these books during the SUMMER VACATION for SUMMER HOMESCHOOL! As the other reviews have mentioned, this book is a "jumping point." We use them to get the kids interested in certain types of literature, periods of history, geographical locations, science subjects, etc. -- then we go to the library once a week to further our study! My children LOVE reading through the books, looking at the photos -- one thing these books have sparked is an interest in FAMOUS WORKS OF ART, and my girls are enjoying examining other works, in other books! This book gets FIVE STARS for a wonderful home-resource, especially in our summertime!
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Summary: TERRIFIC HOMESCHOOL or "SUPPLEMENTAL HOMESCHOOL" Companion!
Review: I LOVE the CORE KNOWLEDGE SERIES! I use these books during the SUMMER VACATION for SUMMER HOMESCHOOL! As the other reviews have mentioned, this book is a "jumping point." We use them to get the kids interested in certain types of literature, periods of history, geographical locations, science subjects, etc. -- then we go to the library once a week to further our study! My children LOVE reading through the books, looking at the photos -- one thing these books have sparked is an interest in FAMOUS WORKS OF ART, and my girls are enjoying examining other works, in other books! This book gets FIVE STARS for a wonderful home-resource, especially in our summertime!
Rating:
Summary: Helpful guide and a nice revision
Review: The Core Curriculum series is a good jumping-off place to guide a child in an education. It gives information that builds upon itself, and this enables a child to develop a chronological sense of history and discovery. The series is fairly developmentally appropriate. Some may argue that it does not allow for flexibility and curiousity, but using it in a home environment should not curtail exploration; on the contrary, a child who is allowed to peruse the book at leisure will find many curious and interesting things, and may have more questions than the book itself can answer, which is why it makes a great starting point for further exploration. If greater interest is not illicited regarding a particular subject, at least an introduction is made. It is a collection of facts, stories, and simple exercises that can be taken as far as interest and time will allow. The series cannot stand on its own, and is not meant to, but allows a child to begin exploration in the sciences and arts. When supplemented and expanded with field trips, experiments, and curiosity, it can serve as the basis for a fun and enlightening education. A particularly nice feature of the revised edition is the introduction of ancient world religions. It is always helpful to aid gaining an understanding of our world by introducing the varying ideas upon which people base their values, moral standards, and practices. The Core Knowledge Curriculum is recommended for those who wish to aid children in a guided discovery of their world, who want to allow children to stand on the platform for a moment and look around before they decide what end of the pool they would like to jump into.
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Summary: Good material, but could be expanded upon
Review: This book (and I've been purchasing all in the series) delivers what it promises - the content of material a 2nd grader should be taught throughout the year. What I think could make a great book even better, is if the book would also deliver more advice and suggestions on how a parent should go about delivering and enforcing the supplemental material. Activities, quizzes, and worksheets about the topics presented would help the child maintain the information. I've found that the "tips" on how parents should help their children given in the introduction to each section have decreased with each year in the book series. There was a lot more information given in the introductions for the kindergarten and first grade books than there is in the second grade book. I will definitely buy the rest of the series, but I will probably have to come up with ways to enforce the material presented on my own. Which is fine -- the book doesn't promise to do this, it would just be an even better book if it did.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Building Block
Review: This review is about the 2nd book in the core series "What your __ grader needs to know" The author/ Editor E.D. Hirsh Jr. has compiled every well-known fact in American culture such as literature, slogans, sayings, history, math and all other subjects that a child of a particular age or "grade" should know. There are 7 volumes in all from Kindergarten to 6th grade. The premise of this book was to create a national standard so that children in the same grade are learning the same things at the same time be it from classroom to classroom, or from state to state. In the books Introduction, Hirsh explains how a parent of twins were concerned that they were learning completely different things and thus were both getting different and abbreviated educations with many gaps. He believes that it is "a sign of trouble when teachers in that school do not know what children in other classrooms are learning on the same grade level, much less in earlier and later grades". I can identify with Hirsh's concerns as a parent who has moved from state to state across the US. My son was in 3 schools in 3 years and as far as I could tell, repeated Kindergarten 3 times with few exceptions. When he finally got to a school that was up to par with the 1st school he attended, he was lost. So having a unifying curriculum across the United States is very helpful. As this book has been widely acclaimed and used in public and private schools across the country , I believe it will be very useful to me and my children as we embark upon our homeshooling career. To date this is the only book of its kind written for public schools, and though there are suggested curriculums for homeschooling parents, there are so many camps and methods available, that unifying is not possible.
I am a little wary of the whole concept of a unified curriculum because our children are not machines to feed information to at predestined intervals in order to come out with a good finished product. Instead they are individual human beings, all with differing strengths and abilities, and I don't feel all children should be restricted to learning the same thing. Of course this is how the problem started in the first place, because just as all children are different, so are all teachers. So we are stuck with an interesting catch 22. Using this book as a starting ground and allowing a student to go into further depth on subjects that interest him or her can best resolve this conflict. The Book "What Your 1st Grader Needs to Know" has already become a favorite in my home and is a great building block to use not only after, but also in conjunction with the Kindergarten volume. I have found that this book repeats much of the material in the Kindergarten book reinforcing popular knowledge while including it for anyone who may have missed this information in the lower grades. It then builds upon this knowledge by adding more. This is most evident in the literature section where we see things we have already read in the Kindergarten books along with many new treasures. For the Literature sections at least you could skip some levels and not miss anything because of the repetitive nature of the series. In subjects like math and science however, it may be necessary to use the books chronologically in order to build upon a Childs knowledge from year to year. Contents of the First grade book include, but are not limited to: Language arts witch includes: Nursery rhymes, poems, Aesop's Fables, and short stories.
Geography, world civilization, and American Civilization,
A deeper understanding of fine arts, including, books, and musical arts
Math from counting to fractions to using the calculator
Science with the same subjects as before on a deeper more involved level When I purchased this book, I thought it would serve mostly as our curriculum for the upcoming years, but instead I have found a great resource and guide as to where to start. I believe these books will help to make my children's interests more evident and inspire them to concentrate on the areas they are passionate about. I purchased these books in anticipation of beginning homeschooling, but we could not wait to get started on this series. I recommend this and the other books in this set to anyone considering homeschooling or even school schooling
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