I have a great group of internet friends that have helped me enormously over the years. Every year they share ideas for Christmas presents. Some of those suggestions I see year after year after year.... Other ideas I have used myself with great success! If you are looking for something new and different - but also educational - you might want to look over this list and see if you feel inspired...
Our all time FAVORITE source for gifts that fall under the “specialization” category has got to be The Teaching Company. They have college lectures on audio and video. It’s like auditing a college course! If your child loves music, science, art, history, math, or anything else, you can find interesting lectures on the subject they learn for fun! Our favorite lectures include How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, Calculus Made Clear, and C.S. Lewis. They have wonderful lectures in all subject areas, and we credit The Teaching Company with our success in CLEP exams, which paid for a whole year of college. This is a great way to promote academic areas of specialization.
If you have a science-minded child, consider purchasing a science kit of some kind. My favorite source for science is Home Training Tools, located in Montana. They have great service, and wonderful products. If your science students like Monopoly, consider getting Elemento for Christmas, which is appropriate for grades 5 and up.
For kids who specialize in arts and literature, look at The Impressionists Art Game. It is a game AND a book about The Impressionist period of art history. I loved this game, because my children actually learned the names of famous works of art.
A similar game, also very fun, is Parker Brothers game called Masterpiece. You can purchase it below at Amazon. Don't be scared off by the price shown below. It comes up for about half that price on Amazon. Still, I think it must be a collectable now.
Remember that your goal is to encourage your child’s area of specialization. You’re trying to buy them Christmas gifts that will help them pursue their passion – the passion that colleges love. This Christmas, give them gifts that they love that will ALSO help them when they apply to college.
One year for Christmas my children received Draw Today. They loved it! I’m not sure if it’s because they are mathematically minded, and it teaches drawing using a graph. Whatever the reason, they thought it was great fun. My son, Alex used one of his creations to help win the full-tuition scholarship competition at Seattle Pacific University.
Many children who love art will also love literature. A very popular game with homeschoolers is also a study on Shakespeare. The Play's the Thing teaches Shakespeare in game format. It comes in standard version, but you can add tragedy or comedy card sets.
If you are looking for special Christmas reading, our family favorite is Norman Rockwell’s Christmas Book.
This is the book that gave us all the great paintings of Norman Rockwell that we used for our creative writing assignments in December.
Other classic Christmas literature includes The Gift of the Magi by O’Henry
and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
Both of these books can be very inexpensive, and would be great for a stocking stuffer if you don’t use it for school.
Some children are fascinated by geography. We had some games that we really enjoyed as a family. We loved Take Off, which teaches geography:
Ticket to Ride is a game that teaches countries and major cities as you conquer the continent by train. We have Ticket to Ride Europe, but there are other versions as well.
I’m not sure how educational it is, but the teenage boys in our church especially love the board games Carcassonne
and Settlers of Catan. Both of these offer the basic game and then multiple variations and expansion sets. I have listed our favorites.
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Lee Binz, The HomeScholar helps parents homeschool for high school and is a leading internet home school resource helping parents homeschool to college. You can find Lee online at http://www.TheHomeScholar.com.
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- Bryan Jones, Associate Director of Admissions,
Seattle Pacific University
