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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The Core Knowledge Curriculum is excellent. I know homeschooling families who use it. Engage New York school curriculum is actually Core Knowledge.[/quote]

It is a goldmine. I am surprised that MCPS flailed so badly with curriculum, when this was available?

As for content - many companies in the business of creating textbooks do a  fairly decent job. I remember using Houghton Mifflin textbooks for Math in early ES grades and they were quite good. Buy them for a few dollars each from Amazon.   Also go to the publisher's website.  There are  free online resources available related to every single textbook, where you can print out worksheets. No need to reinvent the wheel.

Also look at recommended textbooks in colleges for students taking remedial math, algebra 1 etc...they are much more well written than the textbooks for school students.  Same goes for Science books. I have always bought textbooks for all grades and subjects (2nd hand) and know for a fact that some very crappy textbooks are prescribed in MCPS.  For example, the Biology Hons book with the dragonfly image on it is among  one of the choppiest textbooks that I have seen (Pearson/prentice hall?), so do your homework, read reviews, and also look at the textbooks prescribed in colleges for all the 101 courses.  I used Jay Phelan - What Is Life: A Guide to Biology, Campbells biology book,  plus some other materials to tutor my kid at home because the textbook was so  choppy and the teacher was very incompetent.  However, I am not saying that don't invest in the school prescribed textbooks.  It gives you a guideline of what will be covered.  + the MCPS curriculum gives you an idea where to start.  So, take all of that, and do some cherry picking, watch some Khan Academy tutorials, go online for particular topics if you cannot understand something and cobble together something that works for your child.

I have been able to teach almost all subjects based entirely from Khan Academy tutorials and these textbooks.   Very often parents get  intimidated about tutoring their kids.  The truth is that if your kids can learn these subjects at school without prior knowledge then so can you.

Finally, what makes a great textbook?  A person who is truly knowledgeable and a great teacher and author - will write a textbook that is simple, straight forward and allows you to get the big picture easily.   Are you a PhD? Great.  But can you explain your work in simple enough language that a 5th grader can understand it? No? Then you have not been able to write a great textbook.

That is the reason I have loved the khanacademy videos because Sal Khan did not expects me to really know stuff,  but he was able to explain concepts to his viewers in a way that they could build upon that knowledge.  There are such resources available for free or very little cost. Don't lose hope. And don't be deluded into thinking that MCPS will be fixed soon. [/quote]

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