Reply to 2.0 1st grade curriculum: Carbon Dioxide? Yes! Telling time? No!

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "2.0 1st grade curriculum: Carbon Dioxide? Yes! Telling time? No! "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't understand what's abnormal or age-inappropriate about learning about carbon dioxide and the carbon footprint. (And I know that first-graders learned about the environment under the previous curriculum.)

It makes a lot of sense to me to wait to teach about time on an analog clock until the children have learned about fractions. And I don't see the detriment, since everybody uses digital clocks these days anyway.

Also, a lot of the stuff you complain about is school policy, not the curriculum.

(Probably under the previous curriculum, you would have been one of the people complaining about math acceleration. MCPS can't do anything right.)[/quote]
+1  on the telling time.  I volunteered in my DC's 2nd grade class to help teach telling time, and knowing what "quarter" meant was very useful.  Some school districts no longer teach how to read an analog clock, or how to write in cursive.  I know some parents have stated that their kids haven't learned cursive in mcps, but mine have (in 3rd grade).

Yes, it is it the school policy, not the curriculum.  I think it's great that kids learn about the environment as part of science at an early age.  They may not understand the big picture, but they can certainly understand that what one does everyday contributes to the environmental pollution.  My 6 yr old DD asked me why I couldn't drive her to school instead of her taking the bus.  I had to explain to her about the concept of "carbon footprint".  I don't think that's a hard concept for a child to learn. You just have to present it so a 6 yr old can understand it.

Some things are slower, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  At this age, too much too quick acceleration in math for 99% of kids is not the best idea.  There have been lots of complains by parents and teachers about how too many kids pre 2.0 were accelerated too quickly in math, and they were finding that these kids were missing or weak in the fundamentals.[/quote]

So instead you think no one should be accelerated?  That is the way to go instead of not allowing so many to go thru?  Just take it away from everyone and teach a baseline level math to everyone?

And you think it is okay for some schools to teach math facts to 100, some teach time, some teach cursive while others do not?  So some schools are or are not following the 1st grade curriculum and you are okay with that?

And do we really think most 6 and 7 year olds don't know what a quarter is?  When do they learn money.  In 4th grade?  [/quote]
No where did I state that any kind of acceleration was bad. I stated that "some things are *slower*", not that there is no acceleration at all.  I am not ok with schools not following policy, but perhaps some teachers deviate a bit from the curriculum based on the needs of the kids?  That's a teacher/principal issue, not a curriculum issue.

When I was teaching the 2nd graders about telling time, some of them didn't know what a quarter was.  That's how I know it was useful for a child to know what a quarter is before they learn to tell time.  Yes, there are some kids who don't know the value of coins by 1st grade, though I believe they teach it in mcps, but can't remember if it was 1st or 2nd grade.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics