This is my first review day. It is certainly NOT the first review I've done. I've been a regular at http://www.epinions.com/ for years and now also review for http://www.librarything.com/ and http://www.amazon.com/ as well as freelance review for different publishers.

Today, I am posting a review I did on the book, "What Your First Grader Needs to Know". Enjoy!

What Your First Grader Needs to Know: Fundamentals of a Good First-Grade Education (The Core Knowledge Series)

"What Your First Grader Needs to Know" is the second in a seven-part series for school children through sixth grade. It encompasses a variety of subjects such as writing, reading, history, math, art, music, science, and touches on different religions in the history section. The book says it gives an overview of what children should know by the end of the first grade. Ideally, one would use it with a publicly or privately-schooled child as a supplement to their "normal" schooling or it would be used as a supplement to a homeschool curriculum. We used it as an addendum to our homeschool curriculum.

This book was very informative and truly did as it claimed: Covered a variety of topics and subjects. It is written in a very easy-to-read format for children of this age. My younger children did get bogged down some in the lengthy history section. We had to break some of those "lessons" down into smaller segments.

I was very impressed with the overall subject coverage in this book. In the reading section, for example, they cover poetry, common sayings and quotations, short-stories and excerpts of larger books. In the history section, they cover American History, World History, and briefly touch on religions. In the science section, they cover anatomy, biology, and earth science. In the music section, they cover different famous musicians, different types of music, and types of instruments. The book offers the same type of information offered in the "K" version, but with more detail as is appropriate for this age. I have the 2nd & 3rd grade versions as well and have found them to appropriately build as you progress through the books.

I was a bit disappointed in the religion section. We are Christians, but want our children exposed to different religions. The fact that the others (Islam, etc) were included is NOT what bothered us; although we did alter the sections some to state the information as what some believe not as fact as the book does. However, we found the section on Christianity which includes the story of Moses to be not only disappointing, but biblically inaccurate which leads me to question the accuracy of other similar sections in this book. If the author was not familiar with this information through his own beliefs, then he should have made certain to input accurate information in this section through sources that DO know; as I have to assume he did in the other religion sections of the book.

Overall, I would recommend this book. It is definitely worth the buy to enhance your child's education, particularly for a homeschooler.

-Me