I wound up selling the encyclopedia because she hated holding the book - it was too heavy to hold. We get the smaller books now.

I certainly wouldn't want a house built by a feel good math student. I want to know that 10 cm is 10 cm - not how they got the answer.

Listening to speeches by Bill and Melinda Gates really chilled me to the bone.

I don't mind so much being a facilitator *at times*, but sometimes one NEEDS to be a teacher, and sometimes kids NEED an expert. Kids are kids. They don't vote for a reason. They have parents for a reason: They're not ready to do it all yet. I think we do a disservice to our kids when we treat them like little adults. They're not. Their brains aren't even completely formed yet and we're trying to get them to make adult choices.

"Oh, this could never happen in Germany..." It took me quite a while to get to the point where I no longer believe that something "could never happen in America". We are a dumbed down population that barely thinks past a Twitter tweet or facebook update. We believe what we're told and have lost the skill of critical thinking, debate, and questioning. We are well versed in offense, racism, and intolerance of differing opinions. It's no longer hard for me to believe that ANYTHING can get pulled over American's eyes because we're too busy with other things to bother researching things for ourselves anymore.

Yes, I know it's not new. However, it was taught to the teachers AS something new that comes with Common Core and he was so thrilled about it. It's all about teachers being "facilitators of learning" rather than experts. It's to teach kids that they are supposed to "discover" together.

My husband friend is a teacher and he was happily explaining how his classroom would be changing to better help all the chikdren: they would be in groups and all homework and projects would be done in this group. They grouped by the smartest child going with one of the "slow" children do that the smart one can "peer motivate" the child to do better and then two "average children". The group would be graded communally. What wound up happening? The smart kid got worse grades and tbe slow and average kids stayed the same. They considered it a success. Huh???

How can you nurse and type? I never perfected that. LOL

I'm having Moms come to me after having a year of common core in their schools and saying things like, "I had no idea..." and "What the heck happened??" and I try really hard to stifle the "That's what I've been saying for the past two years!!!!!!!". No, I don't have an agenda. No, I don't have a vendetta against public schooling, and it's not because it came out of an administration I don't support. It's a one size fits all untested educational policy that I don't believe will benefit our children. Uniformity of Mediocrity.

Is CK-12 through K-12 or can I see links?

Can I just blanket like all of Courtney_Ostaff's posts? LOL I clicked on everything you posted and I'm so very grateful for your input and sharing what you know.

A friend of mine JUST told me about his books!!!

OO, I like the Science Explorer series - I've seen those before. Thank you!

I have looked at this one before - I also found Prentiss Hall's Earth Science book as well. SO much information in both!

I will check this out, thank you!

What is RSO Earth?

That looks really cool!

Maybe. I can say my experience has been quite the opposite - that the teachers seem to like it and people who oppose it are "Tin foil Hat nasty tea baggers..." LOL AFAIK, an internet friend who teaches in NY said that Engage NY was implemented word for word how the Common Core standards were put out - including scripts as to how to teach everything, the testing, etc... People say it's only a set of standards, but standards beget curriculum...follow the money.

Keep them coming!!! Checking these all out!

Did you read all that was posted? That wasnt the only thing mentioned as being inappropriate. It is not appropriate to think That every kindergartner (including special needs) can. The problem I see a lot is that when Singapore is brought up in this way, people get upset that their program of choice is being dissed. Far from it-- Common core is NOT Singapore, so confusing it with common core does nothing but shut down the conversation IME. CC text books seem to use similar methods. I think it's wrong to put Singapore(which has proven its mettle and efficacy ) in the same category as Common Core. Common Core takes unproven, untested methods and makes a conglomeration of math that makes it a mess. Not one expert of child development was even consulted. That to me speaks volumes.

This exact scenario happened in the county I live in. My nephew was one of the sophomores caught up in the "would've passed but oops now you don't" crowd. Sometimes I think they know EXACTLY what they are doing and it's to destroy the system we have and hoodwink people into thinking, as Princess Leia said, " Help me, common core... You're our only hope! "

Well, of course it will. LOL THE SKEPTIC in me says they did it to show how abysmal ort kids are doing and why we NEED common core sooo badly. See how badly they did on the tests????

I have that first one on my list so far. I was able to download a sample and we are going to go through it. We did Apologias Astronomy and felt it wasn't in depth enough, but I don't know if we are looking for dry and boring either. LOL I Will check all of those out, thank you!

I am not opposed to lap books, unit studies, or text books. I'm easy. I have a daughter who wants to learn about the earth and it's processes. She loves Astronomy and wants to learn about the planets. She has had just very basic introduction to Earth Science - the layers of the earth, erosion, rocks, that sort of stuff. Our Science book through Seton this year is Life Sciences, yet again, and she doesn't want to keep doing biology and living things - she wants to dig in and learn about our world. Typical disclaimer: We are Catholic Christian, and believe that God created the heavens and the earth and everything within it but do not subscribe to (or have any opposition to) the young earth perspective. As the Catholic church professes, we believe that it is not a matter of salvation HOW and how long it took God to do it, only that he did. I do not want a debate about Religion versus Science. I am open to all sources - secular OR religious. Oh, and we have already done Apologia Astronomy and she wants deeper information than it had. She felt it was too young for her. Ready, set, GO!!!!! UPDATE: UPDATE: We have made a decision and I'm purchasing today! This is the 2001 edition, and I will be buying it used because I don't want to support Pearson, who now owns Prentice Hall.. I found it for a very reasonable price. We've been using it from the library, but I can guarantee at SOME time I will have to return it. LOL Science Explorer: Earth Science (Grades 6-9) Prentice Hall Published by Pearson Prentice Hall (2001) It contains: 1. Introduction to Earth Science 2. Mapping Earth's Surface 3. Minerals 4. Rocks 5. Plate Tectonics 6. Earthquakes 7. Volcanoes 8. Weathering and Soil Formation 9. Erosion and Deposition 10. A Trip Through Geologic Time 11. Energy Resources 12. Fresh Water 13. Ocean Motions 14. Ocean Zones 15. The Atmosphere 16. Weather Factors 17. Weather Patterns 18. Climate and Climate Change 19. The Solar System 20. Stars, Galaxies, and the Universe These are all the topics she told me she wanted to work on next year (except for climate change and the ocean, but it excited her to see it). Now to write the lesson plans and figure out how to deal with tests. I've never done that before. The book is 800 pages long. Obviously, we won't be doing it all!

No war - I'm not the warring type. :thumbup1: I belong to a group who's founding member contacted the company personally regarding Common Core and they said that all the new books that they sell will be/ have been changed to align to common core except the home school editions. They were given the definitions and they said they changed things to be in compliance, not that they simply slapped the Common Core moniker on them. I choose to stay with the 2nd edition because I like them the best, and will move to the 3rd edition for 8/7 because that is what our provider uses at that point. There was a "break" so to speak, when Sake took over the editions. He believed in changing it to better meet the educational standards of elementary school teachers while Saxon came at it from a College perspective having seen what kids were not being taught well in elementary school. I more closely align with Saxon's POV, so I stick with the books he had more control over. It's all personal comfort and perspective anyway. I simply mentioned the common core because there are people, both pro AND Con, that choose with that firmly in mind. :) Mr. Reed is neither Saxon NOR Hake...so I take what they say about their product more than Mr. Reed. Nothing negative to him - I think he has awesome videos and help, :)