I give each of my kids a book geared to them…ds13 is getting one on survival skills, ds 11 is getting one on chemistry, dd 9 is getting the new Martha Stewart lean to cook book, and twin dd9 who loves to write and wants to be an author is getting Learn To Write the Novel Way…hope they like them..

Becky

I easily aced both high school and college biology without even trying. Why? Because ever since I was about 4 years old, I was GLUED to the TV watching animal specials on PBS. As a teen, I spent countless hours exploring the intertidal zone on the local beaches and researching my observations to learn more. I was exposed to numerous ecosystems as I hiked around western Washington State. I read *every* *single* *sign* at zoos, museums, and aquariums (talk about annoyance factor for my poor parents, LOL). My children don’t have quite the same “bent” for biology, but they do enjoy it. They like zoos, aquariums, and museums, and they love spending hours poking around tide pools. They enjoy the occasional PBS animal special, and hey, they have Bill Nye and Jeff Corwin – all I had was Marlin Perkins. Between all that extracurricular exposure and their classroom work, they’ve learned a ton. In fact, my 11-year-old recently listened in on a high school oceanography lecture at the beach, and came away grumbling that the instructor didn’t say anything she didn’t already know. She was expecting that the big kids would be learning more advanced concepts than what she’s been exposed to, and was sorely disappointed to not learn anything new!