Common Core, From the Inside (Stories from a 1st Grade Home School Dad)
Anyone Else Home-Schooling With Common Core?
I have a 6yr old entering 1st Grade and today was their first day of school. Since I'm rather poor, our option for home-schooling is the public education system. The curriculum includes common core brainwashing, from the Pearson company.
This is truly disgusting and I'm so glad I didn't throw my kid in regular school. The local school also teaches common core. Without my running the program, this type of material would be very damaging to my child's current state of being.
I'll be Blogging on This Rather Often
Should the first day be any indication of what's to come, I'm sure I'll have PLENTY to blog about.
Teaching Racism??
First day of classes, two examples in the first lesson bring up examples of racism. What? Why, in a primer about cooperation, are there two examples of exclusion due to race?? My kid is six, for crying out loud. They have zero racism in them, why are they teaching it?
These are concepts kids need to research, once they've passed the imprinting stage. Not at 6 years old. What the hell does it have to do with cooperation anyway? Both stories are about non-cooperation and don't add value to the lesson.
When I read the material on racism to my kid, they had, and still have, zero clue what it was about. I sure as hell didn't clue them in. They are not racist, I am not introducing the concept of basing values on skin color or race or any other uncontrollable aspect of people.
My child treats people according to the value presented to them. As should all people.
The programming is strong in the Pearson, common core materials.
Anyone Familiar With Teaching Math?
Real math, along side common core? I've heard my child will 'have' to show their work with the, highly inaccurate and time consuming, method of drawing boxes. (what a waste of time, the kid already knows how to add and subtrace the correct, proven efficient, way.)
Though I'm Not Looking Forward to It
Again, I'm glad my child is not being left defenseless in front of some brainwashed teacher regurgitating this stuff without thought. The time involvement is upwards of 5-7hrs a day, and we just got started. lol
One thing about teaching math.. Use objects. Make a game out of it if you can. Fruit loops (if you allow sweet cereals) were always fun, and yummy. A little snack time math.
Tiddly winks, anything you can use to play addition and subtraction games with and make it fun. Not sure what the requirements are to show work but drawing boxes is boring. We didn't do that until after we played games with stuff to learn the same concept.
Many of the common core math concepts I learned in elementary school, just not like they are trying to teach them today. I don't disagree with the fact that this can help some children learn better math & problem solving skills, but not every child learns the same either. And they won't learn if it is boring and presented in an illogical way.
The rest of common core material provided from what I can tell is a bunch of stuff I wouldn't want to teach my child. Look forward to your posts and see how it goes.
Thank You
All Excellent suggestions and well appreciated :)
It's definitely different than I expected. LOL