8 Great Smarts for Home Schoolers (Book Review)

Today, I'll be sharing my review of the book 8 Great Smarts for Home Schoolers (A Guide to Teaching Based on Your Child's Unique Strengths by author Tina Hollenbeck.  The author addresses the eight smarts (or multiple intelligences) taught by Dr. Kath Koch's book "8 Great Smarts".   

For those who don't know about the multiple intelligences, that's basically a phrase that means different ways we learn and express ourselves.  Those eight variations are word smart, logic smart, picture smart, music smart, body smart, nature smart, people smart and self smart.  Chapter one (1) gives you a brief overview of each type of intelligence.

In chapters two - eight (2-8), the author takes you through the typical academic subjects (math, language arts, science, social studies, fine arts, electives and religious education) and explains to you how to combine those with the eight intelligences.  Some of those are easy to see paired up like word smart and language arts; however, for me it's a little harder to picture music smart paired with science.  Hollenbeck takes the guess work out of it by giving you suggestions on ways to combine the two.  She does not give you step by step formulas, because as we all know, we have to tailor things to each child.

In the appendix, there's a pretty extensive chart for curricular options for ages 0-5 as well as ages 5-18.  Before you get worked up, the 0-5 area lists mostly educational toys, reading, music and foreign language...it is not pushing for extreme academics for the little ones.

This is a short little book (144 pages including the appendix), but has a lot of helpful information.  You can easily identify your child's main intelligence (as well as some co-intelligences), and quickly find ways to help work through some of the glitches you may have encountered.   The book is a great resource for new homeschoolers, but also great for those of us who have been at it a while and then hit a wall with that "one kid" who just isn't wired like everyone else in the family.

About the Author:

Tina Hollenbeck is a homeschool mom who has graduated her children.  She owns The Homeschool Resource Roadmap, a free database that describes thousands of homeshool-oriented learning options.  She also mentors homeschooling parents.

Disclaimer:  I was given a free copy of this book for review purposes only.  I was not compensated in any way for my review, nor was I asked/required to give a positive review.