Science is an area that is taught very differently by district (& state?), at least at the elementary level. The 4th & 5th grades in our district cover different topics, 4th has units on electric circuits, land and water (not sure what to call this - geology? weathering?), and motion while 5th has sound, light, and solar system (I think). Each unit has a hands-on component, I've thought they were pretty good and open-ended(the school makes use of an excellent museum resource in our town). It sounds like your school has a different approach, Val.
Grades 4 and 5 do a lot of the same practical work at DS8's school (another reason why I don't see letting him move to grade 5 as a big deal).
They follow the California state curriculum. I though it was okay after a quick glance at the books last year, and oh, how wrong I was. The copyright date on the books is 2000, which means they were probably written in 1998/1999 and are therefore ten years old. Some of the information is
very out of date.
I found a glaring date-independent error in the book and on an exam. I tried to point it out to the teacher because it had confused DS8. She replied "this is what the book says." End of conversation. I was a little surprised at that.
This got me thinking that every public school kid in the state reads these books. I wonder how many teachers are providing incorrect/outdated information to their students? It's no wonder we have so many people who are scientifically illiterate if the illiteracy is fostered in elementary school!
Well, I guess the honeymoon's over at the new school. It's better in some ways, but not at all what we'd hoped. Oh well.
Val
