10 Gifts for Your Child that Won’t Disappoint!→

When we buy a gift for our child, we want it to light up his face.

At the same time, we don't want to overindulge our children with toys that clutter up their rooms and spoil their characters.

To find a happy medium, I’ve created a list of ten gifts that will make your child happy and benefit his brain.

1. The Proverbial Book

Most young children enjoy receiving a book as a gift. You can buy a beautiful edition of a particular book with leather binding or a fancy edition of the book that includes a slipcase.

If your child is younger, choose a cleverly illustrated book like Mother Goose by Silvia Long or Aesop’s Fables by Chronicle Books. For a gift, I would stick to the classics.

Classics have stood the test of time, and your children will cherish them for many years to come, even unto adulthood.

2. Brain Cells at Work

No child ever tires of putting together a puzzle, and how wonderful it is for the budding brain cells. Your child will develop his reasoning and problem-solving skills, he exercises his hand-eye coordination, he builds his sensory/motor skills (lots of pinching, picking, and putting tasks involved), and he feels happy when he accomplishes his mammoth feat.

The latter also helps to build his confidence. Who would have thought your child could gain so much from a puzzle!

The wooden puzzle sets by Melissa and Doug are all-time favorites for younger children. 

For older children, you can try something like a colorful map of Europe.

3. Rainy Day Activities

Rainy days and long summer nights are perfect times for playing board games. Depending upon your child's age, you can buy him games that he'll enjoy playing with friends and family.

Think of games such as Chutes and Ladders, Checkers, and even chess. Board games are perfect for building social skills, especially the art of losing well.

4. Discovering Where Timbuktu Is

Children love playing cards. If you'd like to contribute to your child's education, buying a card game that teaches the countries of the world or the fifty states and capitals is perfect.

Sadly, most children don't learn much geography anymore. But with a good game of cards, your child won’t be one of them.

5. Playing Queen for the Day

A “make-your-own-jewelry” set is better suited for girls because girls love their jewelry! Making jewelry is a lot of fun, it's creative, and the jewelry can be given away as gifts. Children, therefore, will also learn the much-appreciated virtue of generosity. This kit is complete, and the price is reasonable too.

Girls Jewelry Making Kit. 

6. Rocket Man

And boys love rockets! Actually, all the children will have fun making this rocket from a soda bottle and baking soda. The kit comes with instructions, all the supplies you need, and it's easy to do.

The Water Bottle Model Rocket is suitable for children six through the early teens. The water rocket is another activity that is fun to do with other children and encourages cooperation.

7. More Than Just Another Puzzle

Children love brain games. Rubric cubes are a lot of fun, but the wooden brain puzzles are even better. Your child will spend hours trying to figure out the problem, and a child who stays at it long enough is bound to eventually figure it out.

Patience is the name of the game with this kind of puzzle, and patience is a virtue. A brain puzzle is a perfect way to learn a little patience.

Warning: only buy one puzzle. The kits with multiple puzzles will dilute your child’s attention, and he’ll be less likely to solve the mystery. 

8. Stencil Kit

A stencil kit is probably not the first gift that pops into your mind when thinking of a gift for your child, but the truth is that children love to stencil. It's another activity that your child can do with friends, alone, or even while traveling; and it'll keep him occupied for hours.

Children will naturally compliment each other’s work, too, which is another opportunity to learn generosity and kindness towards others.

9. A Musical Adventure

Many children miss the story of Peter and the Wolf, composed by Sergie Prokofiev. Peter and the Wolf is a classical composition that introduces the musical instruments of a symphony through a story about Peter and the Wolf.

Children love to listen to this piece, and they may even show an interest in a particular instrument, which is a great way to get them into the world of classical music.

Musical training will teach your child many virtues, including discipline and perseverance. It also gives him an interest that will elevate his character rather than then let society drag it down.

Peter and the Wolf is the perfect place to start and the ideal gift for your child.

10. The Gift of Andrew Jackson

When all else fails, there's always the 20 dollar bill. Children love to receive money, so don't feel bad if for some reason you can’t buy something. The 20 dollar bill could turn out to be his favorite gift!

It's also an excellent way to introduce your child to the value of a dollar and how to spend it wisely on something worth buying.

The best way to deliver this gift is to buy a money card from your local gift shop and then get a crisp twenty-dollar bill from the bank.

The Don’ts of Buying Children’s Gifts

If you are buying a gift for someone else’s child, you want to be sure to follow these guidelines:

1. Do not buy any toys that make noise (the parents will never forgive you).

2. Do not buy anything electronic (parents are struggling enough with their children and technology).

3. Do not buy candy (many parents do not appreciate this).

That said, if you follow the suggestions above, you will not only make yours or someone else’s child very happy, but you’ll help them become better people too. 

Join the FREE Masterclass: Top 3 Secrets to Homeschooling for Success (Your kids will thank you when they’re grown!) by Liz Hanson

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Get a copy of Liz’s homeschooling Bible, Education’s Not the Point: How Schools Fair to Train Children’s Minds and Nurture Their Characters with Essays by John Taylor Gatto and Dorothy Sayers.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 23 years of experience working in education.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.

8 Facts Every Child Should Learn About the Most Sublime Creature on Earth→

What creature is that you are probably wondering?

It is the whale.

We studied dinosaurs in the second grade, yet, dinosaurs pale in comparison to whales. While reading Moby Dick, I discovered a fascination for them because whales are truly sublime.

I’m now convinced that no child should complete childhood without learning about their amazing lives.

Here are 8 facts about whales that you can share with your child:

Fact 1: Whales Are the Largest Creature on Earth

Did you know that whales are the largest animal on Earth, even bigger than the T-Rex Dinosaur? The nine heaviest creatures in the world belong to the whale family. A blue whale weighs 200 tons, and when they give birth, their babies weigh three tons and gain 200 pounds per day!

Compare this to the largest elephant ever to exist (as far as we know), who weighed only 4 tons, and you begin to realize the magnitude of of whales. 

Fact 2: Whales Have the Largest Brains

The sperm whales have the largest brains of any animal, including man. Not only do they have the largest brains, but their brains contain a neocortex, like the human brain. The neocortex governs higher cognitive functions such as planning, memory, empathy, and language.

The sperm whale has a highly sophisticated language that is based on sound. They emit coded clicks at the speed of milliseconds and can emit these sounds at vast distances. 

Scientists today are trying to decode their language using artificial intelligence. Someone even wrote a book about real conversations with whales and how the lessons we learn from them can help us live more joyful lives.

“As for his true brain, the whale, like all things that are mighty, wears a false brow to the common world. ”

— Moby Dick, Herman Melville

Fact 3: Whales Rely on Sound to See

Because most of the whale’s life is spent at the bottom of the ocean, they must rely on sound to see. Whales use click sounds to communicate which is called echolocation. Echolocation is when their sounds bounce off of an object and send back an echo to the whale that tells them where the object is. 

Fact 4: Whales are the loudest animals alive

They rely on click sounds to see, but these sounds can be as loud as 230 decibels making them the loudest animals on earth. In comparison, if you stood next to a jet engine, the engine's sound is about 150 decibels.

Whales are so loud that their clicking sounds can kill a man! 

Fact 5: Whales Can Hold Their Breath for 90 Minutes

Whales can live underwater for about 90 minutes because their bodies can store massive amounts of oxygen in their muscles. When whales surface to breathe, they breathe for about seven minutes before they go underwater again. 

Fact 6: Whales Have Complex Social Structures

Female whales live in multi-generational families. In contrast, the male whales live solitary lives and return to the females only during the mating season.

Whales will mourn the death of a loved one, and they will celebrate the birth of a calf, according to Shane Gero, a behavioral ecologist and founder of the Dominica Sperm Whale Project.

They have different dialects for each whale pod.

Fact 7: A Whale’s Excrement Is More Valuable than Gold!

Yes, it’s true. Whales eat large squid, and the indigestible parts of the squid are eventually excreted. These excretions float in the water for seven years, going through various changes, and can be washed up on shores in the form of what is known as ambergris. 

“It’s beyond comprehension how beautiful it is, It’s transformative. There’s a shimmering quality to it. It reflects light with its smell. It’s like an olfactory gemstone,” is how Mandy Aftel, a perfumer describes ambergris.

It can sell for anywhere from 10K to 100K, depending upon the size. 

In 2021, a group of Yemeni fishermen found 1.5 million dollars worth of ambergris in the floating carcass of a sperm whale!

Fact 8: Great Whales Are an Endangered Species

Sperm whales are the citizens of the ocean, and they are dying.

"Why are they dying?" asks Shane Gero.

And then he answers his own question: "It's us," he says. "All of us." 

The deluge of gargantuan shipping fleets bringing us our goods from all over the world are killing the greatest creature on earth.  Calves are born, but they are dying from accidents caused by large freighter ships.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, sperm whales were hunted for oil and spermiceti, but now they are killed because of our ignorance. It’s ironic that arguably the most intelligent animal on Earth is going extinct because of man’s stupidity, or greed.

Today, six out of 13 great whale species are considered endangered, including the sperm whale who was the subject of Melville’s masterpiece, Moby Dick.

Teach Your Children Well

Teach your children about the greatest creature on Earth when they are young, and you will have no problem getting them to read Moby Dick when they are older.

Moby Dick is the story of an obsessive pursuit for one albino sperm whale named Moby Dick by a man with a wretched heart called Ahab.

While it's not easy to read, it's a powerful and often humorous book with themes of human nature and human folly gracing the pages.

“God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates. ”

— Moby Dick, Herman Melville

John Taylor Gatto used to have his sixth-grade students read Moby Dick.

Though I never asked him why out of all the great Western classics, he chose Moby Dick; my guess is because once you read it, you can successfully tackle any other work of great fiction.

☞ Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.

Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.

When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents of school-age children, we guide you in homeschooling with the classics to raise more intelligent children of a better character.

Enroll using the link below and feel confident knowing you have the guidance and support you need to homeschool successfully.

For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with our online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and a Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach with 20+ years of experience working in children’s education.

Utilizing her unusual skill set, Elizabeth has developed a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child. She devotes her time to helping parents get it right.

She is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

“Elizabeth has given us counseling and guidance to help us succeed with our home school planning. When I feel overwhelmed, scared, or lose my confidence, she offers words of wisdom and support.”

— Sherry B., Pittsburg, PA

Has Your Child Studied the Greatest Creature on Earth?

What creature is that? You might ask.

It is the whale.

When I think about it, I find it strange that I spent so much of my life knowing so little about whales. I don't remember studying them in school; however, I do remember studying dinosaurs in the second grade, yet, dinosaurs pale in comparison to whales.

But while reading Moby Dick, I find a fascination for whales emerging because they are undoubtedly sublime creatures, if not the most sublime. 

Here are 8 facts about whales that you can share with your child:

Fact 1: They Are the Largest Creature on Earth

Did you know that they are the largest animal on Earth, even bigger than the T-Rex Dinosaur? The nine heaviest creatures belong to the whale family. A blue whale weighs 200 tons, and when they give birth, their babies weigh three tons and gain 200 pounds per day!

Compare this to the largest elephant ever to exist (as far as we know), who weighed only 4 tons, and you begin to realize the magnitude of these creatures. 

Fact 2: They Have the Largest Brains

The sperm whales have the largest brains of any animal, including man. Not only do they have the largest brains, but their brains contain a neocortex, like the human brain. The neocortex governs higher cognitive functions such as planning, memory, empathy, and language.

The sperm whale has a highly sophisticated language that is based on sound. They emit coded clicks at the speed of milliseconds and can emit these sounds at vast distances. 

Scientists today are trying to decode their language using artificial intelligence. Someone even wrote a book about real conversations with whales and how the lessons we learn from them can help us live more joyful lives.

“As for his true brain, the whale, like all things that are mighty, wears a false brow to the common world. ”

— Moby Dick, Herman Melville

Fact 3: They Rely on Sound to See

Because most of the whale’s life is spent at the bottom of the ocean, they must rely on sound to see. The clicks they use to communicate also facilitate them in what is called echolocation. Echolocation is when the click sounds they make bounce off of an object and send back an echo to the whale that tells them where the object is. 

Fact 4: They are the loudest animals alive

They rely on click sounds to see, and these sounds can be as loud as 230 decibels making them the loudest animals alive. In comparison, if you stood next to a jet engine, the engine's sound is about 150 decibels. Whales are so loud that their clicking sounds can kill a man. 

Fact 5: Whales Hold Their Breath for 90 Minutes

Whales can live underwater for about 90 minutes because their bodies can store massive amounts of oxygen in their muscles. When whales surface to breathe, they breathe for about seven minutes before they go underwater again. 

Fact 6: Whales Have Complex Social Structures

Female whales live in multi-generational families while the male whales live solitary lives and return to the females during the mating season.

Whales will mourn the death of a loved one, and they will celebrate the birth of a calf, according to Shane Gero, a behavioral ecologist and founder of the Dominica Sperm Whale Project. They have different dialects for each whale pod.

Fact 7: Their Excrement Is More Valuable than Gold!

Yes, it’s true. Whales eat large squid, and the indigestible parts of the squid are eventually excreted. These excretions float in the water for seven years, going through various changes, and can be washed up on shores in the form of what is known as ambergris. 

“It’s beyond comprehension how beautiful it is, It’s transformative. There’s a shimmering quality to it. It reflects light with its smell. It’s like an olfactory gemstone,” is how Mandy Aftel, a perfumer describes ambergris.

It can sell for anywhere from 10K to 100K, depending upon the size. 

Fact 8: Great Whales Are an Endangered Species

Sperm whales are the citizens of the ocean, and they are dying.

"Why are they dying?" asks Shane Gero. He answers his own question: "It's us," he says. "All of us." 

The deluge of gargantuan shipping fleets on our oceans to bring us our goods from all over the world are killing them.  Calves are born, and they are dying from accidents caused by large freighter ships.

In the 18th and 19th centuries sperm whales were hunted for oil and spermiceti, but now they are killed because of our ignorance. It’s ironic that arguably the most intelligent animal on Earth is going extinct because of man’s stupidity.

Today, six out of 13 great whale species are considered endangered including the sperm whale who was the subject of Melvilles masterpiece.

Teach Your Children Well

Teach your children about the greatest creature on Earth when they are young. After they reach adolescence, you can read Moby Dick with them.

Moby Dick is not an easy book to read, but it's a powerful book with many themes of human nature and human folly woven through the tale of an obsessive pursuit of one albino Sperm whale named Moby Dick by a man with a wretched heart called Ahab.

“God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates. ”

— Moby Dick, Herman Melville

John Taylor Gatto used to have his sixth-grade students read Moby Dick.

Though I never asked him why he chose Moby Dick, my guess is that it was because once you read Moby Dick, you can successfully tackle any other work of great fiction.. 

Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.

Become a Smart Homeschooler and give your child a stellar, screen-free education at home and enjoy doing it. Join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course. Special Covid pricing will remain through December 10, 2020.

Free Download: How to Raise a More Intelligent Child and an Excellent Reader—a reading guide and book list with 80+ carefully chosen titles.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an educator, veteran homeschooler, and a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 19 years of experience working in children’s education. Using her unusual skill set, coupled with the unique mentors she was fortunate to have, Elizabeth has developed a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child. She devotes her time to helping parents get it right.

Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.

How To Teach Your Child To love Reading

In the current school system, they've lost the spirit of reading and reading is just another subject to be tested on. Children are taught to read too early, too, which hinders their chances of falling in love with reading for its own sake. 

“A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.”

— Mark Twain

If you want your child to become a good reader, you should teach him/her to read when they are developmentally ready, and reading should be something they learn to do for pleasure.

Not to pass an exam. 

If you have young children, then you are probably much younger than I and, therefore, you were probably not taught to read the same way I was taught. 

Let me share my reading experience with you in the hopes that you might imitate it with your own children and raise good readers despite this illiterate time. 

It will be a mammoth feat if you can do it. I believe you can. 

Here's My Story:

What My School Taught

Miss. Gilman was my first-grade teacher, and she taught me to read when I was six. 

Maybe it was her high-heeled black pumps that let you know she was headed your way, or her bright red lipstick that never seemed to fade, but I was a little afraid of Miss Gilman. I was also in awe of her. I think we all were.

I have no recollection of struggling to learn, only that she gave us our instructions and within days I was reading. Learning how to read unlocked the door to another world for me, a world of fascinating characters where anything and everything was possible. 

I would get lost in my books for hours, and for hours every day, I got lost. 

One thing was sure back then: reading was never treated as a chore. It was never something we did for school work. We read to enjoy the story as it unfolded in our minds, and as we fell in love with certain characters in our books.

Each book I read became my favorite book. Each character left its mark in my memory, influencing my ideas about the world and who I was.

No Assigned Reading

We were never assigned books to read. Instead, we were taken to the school library and allowed to choose books that we wanted to read. 

No Book Reports

Miss Gilman never asked me to write a single book report. During my elementary years, I don't remember writing a book report for any of my teachers. 

No Testing

That was my experience learning to read in school. No reading assignments. No book reports. No testing.

Freedom to choose from a selection of books.

My life at home supported Miss Gilman's approach to reading too.

What My Home Taught

At home, books were treated as something special. My father modeled reading for us as he always had a book in his hand. Not just any book, but a classic book, and those were the books he would gift us with too. 

He introduced us to the great Western canon of literature. We even had a library in our house, a room that was lined with built-in shelves and dedicated entirely to books. 

In both school and the home, reading was introduced to me as something enjoyable. I looked forward to reading like I would look forward to riding my bike or playing with a friend. 

Today's children don't look forward to reading, and they hardly read anymore. There are multiple reasons for this; one of them is the way learning to read taught to schoolchildren. 

Children are taught to read when they are still too young, they grow frustrated because of it, and they subsequently develop a negative association with reading.

Not all children, but too many children. When was the last time you saw a child reading in public? For me, it was four years ago. I remember precisely where too. 

I was going into Home Goods, and as I entered through the doors, my eyes fell on a little girl curled up in a couch, and she had a open book in her hand. 

I haven't witnessed a child reading in public since.

Contributing further to a decline in reading are the tests children are given to determine their reading skills and the boring book reports they are required to write. 

To add insult to injury, too many children lose confidence in their intelligence when their level of reading is less than others in the class.

Why do we teach a skill so vital to acquiring knowledge in such a careless way? If children are not good readers today, shouldn't we try to understand why and correct the problem?

But we don't. Instead, we carry on making the same mistakes we've been making ever since children decided that reading wasn't worth their time. 

Be a prudent parent by teaching your child to love reading before you put him/her into the school system. 

Don't take the chance of letting the school mess up the one skill that will ultimately impact your child's level of intelligence and understanding. 

Dumbed-Down was the phrase John Taylor Gatto used in the title his book about the miseries of public education.

What Your Homeschool Will Teach

If you're homeschooling, your chances of raising a good reader are much, much higher than if you put your child into school. 

No tests. No book reports. No assigned reading until they are older.

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”

— Cicero

Model reading for your children. Surround your home with great books. Discuss books with other adults and let your children overhear your conversations. Give books a priority in your home, and your children will learn to prioritize books.

How to Raise a More Intelligent Child and an Excellent Reader—a free guide and book list with over 80+ carefully chosen titles.

Homeschool the smart way by joining the Smart Homeschooler Academy to learn how to give your child the best of an elite education at home.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an educator, veteran homeschooler and a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 17 years experience working in children’s education.

Using her unusual skill set, she has developed a comprehensive and unique understanding of how to raise and educate a child, and she devotes her time towards helping parents get it right.

10 Books Every Concerned Parent Should Read

The world is a little topsy-turvy right now especially when it comes to raising and educating our children.

The following books were carefully chosen as a guide to help you navigate some of the issues you will face as a parent living in the West.

1. Hold On to Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate, M.D.

In trying to understand why children no longer revere their parents in the same way that my parent's generation revered their parents, I turned to Neufeld and Mate's book, Hold On to Your Kids.

Part of the answer lies within the pages of this book and will help you understand why peer pressure is so real, and how you can lose your children to peer pressure. It also contains some suggestions for how to protect the bond between you and your children. 

While their solutions are somewhat naive, if I may be so bold as to say that, the authors delineate a very real situation that every parent should understand.

2. Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning by Dorothy Sayers

This essay is Dorothy Sayer's famous critique of modern education using her great wit and brilliant insight. It's amusing as well as informative.

To raise the standard for your child's education, you need first to understand what level of academic work he's capable of doing. There's no better way to do this than to ignore the standards of modern education, and, instead, look at what school children used to learn. 

3. The Disappearance of Childhood by Neil Postman

Neil Postman was a perceptive social critic who argued that childhood was disappearing. The reason for the disappearance was the blurred lines that technology created by exposing children to the adult world too soon.

With the loss of childhood also came the loss of adulthood, which continues to present a significant problem for our society's ability to remain civil. 

4. Gwynne's Latin by N. M. Gwynne - The Introduction

Mr. Gwynne is an expert on the subject of the Latin language. He tells stories of having studied Latin for 90 minutes a day, five days a week as a schoolboy.

By the time I (and later, you) went to school, they had eliminated Latin from the curriculum. To our detriment, too, because without the study of Latin, you can never fully understand or appreciate the English language. 

People who learn Latin are better educated. It's a simple fact. The reason you should read his introduction to his Latin book is that he will give you an irrefutable argument for why you should have your children learn Latin. You can study it, too, as I do–it's never too late.

5. The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto

Gatto's opus work tells the story of how a sub-standard modern education came to be, and why you must understand it's origins so you can make informed decisions for your children when it comes to deciding how you want to educate them. 

I prefer Gatto's original work over the newly revised work of the same title. Buy a copy of the older book, if you can. His newer version was written during his last years, and intended as a three-volume set, but, sadly, he never finished it. 

6. The Platonic Tradition by Peter Kreeft

You may be wondering why I included this title? It's vital to Western civilization that we understand the ideas upon which our civilization was built so that we can protect them when they're under threat of being undermined as they are today.

We also need to pass this understanding onto our children, so they are not easily swayed by the high falutin rhetoric that robs us of our civil liberties under the guise of equality. Kreeft's book will correct the errors in understanding that brought us to where we are today.

7. Glow Kids by Nicholas Kardaras, Ph.D.

A ground-breaking book that exposes the technology industry for what it is, and the harm it's inflicting on our children during their most vulnerable years. Protect your child by reading this book and passing it on to your friends to read. We need a no-tech revolution, at least no tech in the lives of children. 

8. How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren

The title seems like an oxymoron, but it's not. The authors acknowledge our ability to read but also our failure to read with deep understanding. We were never taught the skill of reading beyond a rudimentary level, and this is the gap How to Read a Book attempts to fill. 

They will show you how to tackle a book in a way that will make it your own. Especially if you plan on homeschooling, you want to learn this skill so you can teach it to your children when they get older. 

9. Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto

Dumbing Us Down was Gatto's landmark book when he first entered the world of non-schooling education. He writes an easy-to-read book about the problems with modern education and why you should consider alternatives to a "school-like" training for your child.

Whether you do or not, you should understand the system so you can help your child navigate it if you decide to put him or her into school.

10. The Leipzig Connection by Paolo Lionni

How modern psychology removed the soul from the study of psychology and then coupled that soul-less subject with the department of modern education and the subsequent impact it has had on children's education. An important read!

Some of these books are inexpensive, some are more expensive, but they are all worth reading.

Receive a free download with the titles and links to 10 Books Every Concerned Parent Should Read.

Join the Smart Homeschooler Academy to learn how to give your child an elite education at home.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 17 years experience working in children’s education. She has two successfully homeschooled children in college.

Teaching Children Poetry Makes Them Smarter

Poetry memorization imprints beautiful language into the hearts of children. Once a prominent subject in every language arts program, it’s a wonder why poetry is no longer taught in the public schools.

Yet, some of the most literate people I’ve known, both in their vast knowledge of the English language and in their colorful expression of thought, have been poets.

Whether schools offer lessons in  poetry or not, it’s something you should be teaching your children at home if you want to improve their language skills, enrich their minds; and even, on a more mundane level–not at all fitting for a discussion of poetry– improve their chances of getting into a better college.

In short, it makes them smarter.

What exactly do children gain from studying poetry, you might ask?

• extensive vocabulary building

• increase in general knowledge

• stimulation of the imagination

• learn creative syntax

• understand simile and metaphor

• versatility with language

As you can see, they gain a lot and all that they gain develops their minds. Let’s examine each benefit one by one.

Vocabulary

Looking down the road, and getting the mundane out of the way first, entry into colleges today is highly competitive. If you plan on your children entering a four-year university then good SAT or ACT scores are vital to the process, and part of what the children will be tested on is vocabulary.

Possessing a good vocabulary could give your child the edge he needs to score high.

Exposing children to an extensive vocabulary by reading poetry, especially words they may not learn anywhere else, and memorizing poetry will automatically build their vocabularies.

A larger vocabulary is also associated with higher intelligence, therefore, people who have larger vocabularies are perceived as being more intelligent than others.

Whether they are or not is another matter, but the larger vocabulary they possess at least shows that they are using their minds more which would improve their intelligence according to modern research.

General Knowledge

Poets not only have an extensive working vocabulary, but they are well-read and much of their general knowledge about the world is found in their poetry. Hence, reading poetry increases a child’s general knowledge too.

“Poetry is truer than history. ”

— Aristotle

Imagination

Poetry stimulates the imagination and evokes feelings we can’t always put into words, at least, not to the same effect. Memorizing poetry stirs the workings of the child’s heart.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night;

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Syntax

Poets know how to play with words, and they become masters of the figures of speech like no other.  It’s the ability to arrange words in original and powerful ways that makes some writers stand out above the rest. When children memorize poetry, they are memorizing the skilled writing of master poets.

“Poetry is beautiful language distinguished by unusual and unforgettable words.”

— David J. Hanson

The language of the poet stays in the children’s hearts and later emerges to influence their own use of language both written and spoken. Just the other day I was writing something and I automatically used the phrase “and above all else.” Why? Because long ago I had memorized a line of poetry that contained the same phrase.

Children who memorize and study poetry will be better speakers and writers having been influenced for life by the great poets both past and present.

Simile and Metaphor

As they get older, children will learn about the adornments of language through poetry: simile and metaphor;  both powerful tools in good writing and persuasive speech.

Versatility

Learning how to play with words to create original expressions of thought is the hallmark of the poet. I had a dear friend who has since left this world, Daniel Moore, and he was a great writer though mostly unrecognized during his time.

I seldom laughed as much with anyone as I did with him, because he was funny, but he also had such an enormous vocabulary and he knew how to play with words. Some of the things he used to say would not only have me in stitches, but I’d be silently marveling at his tremendous understanding of the English language.

He knew a lot of words, he knew their meanings, and he knew how to use them.

This is just some of what your children will get from studying and memorizing poetry.

When children memorize poetry, they are not only storing it in their minds, but also in their hearts. It becomes a part of them, and it shapes who they become.

In Gwynne’s Grammar, Mr. Gwynne begins his chapter on verse-writing by saying this:

“Time was when even the most ordinary education included training in competence at writing verse.”

He uses this chapter to define and explain the rules of poetry according to the classical understanding. I’m going to uphold his position here and encourage you to choose good poetry for your children, not the free verse modern stuff that is mistakenly taken for poetry today.

I’ll leave you with a poem my father used to love by his favorite poet after Shakespeare.

The Road Not Taken 

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

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Elizabeth Y. Hanson combines her training in holistic medicine, parenting, plus 17+ years working in education, to provide you with a unique approach to raising and educating your children.

A veteran homeschooler herself, she now has two homeschooled children in college.