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We covered why you should educate your kids at home in part 1.Now we’re going to cover the “how,” which involves sparking your child’s interest and imagination from as early an age as possible. Three things will help you meet this goal enjoyably and effectively.My number-one book recommendation for parents, right from the start, is to obtain a really good guide to children’s books.Let's start with what is the 100% most important thing to do. The most effective way to spark learning for young children is so simple, and it’s good for you, the parent, as well.1. Go outsideThe more time children spend exploring the outdoors, the more their curiosity is piqued and the more they learn. And this learning is the best learning, through their God-given senses.Don’t skimp on outside time. Go out several times a day, weather permitting, and don’t rush them back inside. Walks are great!Nature provides the best classroom, wherever you live (or visit): beauty, colors, and patterns to see; birdsong and leaves rustling and dogs barking to hear; cool breezes and warm sun to feel; velvety flower petals and rough bark to touch; and (with supervision!) fresh berries or tomatoes from the garden to taste.Side note: Play is a child’s first job, and outdoor play is the best workplace. Playing with your children (out or inside) is one of your most important jobs, too. Laughing and enjoying each other should happen often each day!So introduce them to the glories outside your door, let them experience it, and give them language to describe it. Don’t worry; this is what we naturally do when we’re present outside with kids. “See the pretty flower?” And, as age-appropriate: “What color is it? Feel how soft it is! No, we don’t want to pick it — let’s let it keep growing here.”Which brings me to the second-most important part of your child’s curriculum.2. Talk. About everything.You will be rewarded with a more verbal child, earlier, who can share his/her thoughts and needs more effectively.Talk to your children outside, talk to them inside, talk to them while they’re eating, talk to them during diaper changes.Point things out, describe them in adult language, ask them to name the things you’re pointing out.This starts with nouns (“See the ball? Can you say ball?") but eventually they’ll be able to add adjectives (“purple ball”) and other parts of speech, leading eventually to phrases and sentences.Side note: Treasure each adorable mis-pronunciation (yeah, get those on video if you can for the grandparents), but continue saying the words properly. Don’t correct them — just say them properly when you say them. They’ll get it.3. Help them learn to love booksThe last subject in our must-have preschool curriculum is “Introduction to Books.”Books — hard-copy books that children can touch — should be introduced from the very beginning.Cloth books made for teething babies are plentiful, and by all means let them gum away on them — but also turn the pages and show them the pictures, again speaking about what they’re seeing (“See the black square?”).Books made of waterproof material are available for bath time, as well. These “chewable” books tend to be mostly images, which is what you want, for these purposes. You won’t really be “reading” them as much as describing them.Board books will carry you through the first few years, when children aren’t yet able to be gentle with “regular” books. These should have brief, simple text and colorful, interesting images. Invest in a library of these, because you will use them over and over.There are some time-tested classic board books (see list below) and quite a few that are outstanding for bedtime (again, see suggestions). You should keep board books in every location where your child might want a story! But keep the bedtime books separate, since they often become part of your bedtime routine (remember our principle of “order”).Also, do teach them to respect their books. Discourage throwing or standing on them — “let’s treat our books nicely” is a lesson they need to learn so they can move on to picture books. This is the category of regular children’s books (with regular, tearable pages!) that we are aiming our children to be able to enjoy.This level has so many good selections (again, see suggestions below) that you will probably run out of childhood before you run out of books. Again, you can have bedtime books, books for the car, books for different rooms. You can’t have too many books. (Well, that might be an exaggeration, but as a book lover, I defend my right to push this idea.)We haven’t talked about content of board or picture books yet, so a few quick notes. First, I have seen a tendency for Christian board books to include concepts that simply aren’t appropriate for board-book-age children. As a grandparent, I ordered a couple of recommended board books and found the text of one of them to be far too advanced for a toddler; another was better but still included ideas that I deemed too much for a young child.While I’m warning about Christian books (of all things), let me point out the obvious — the world is full of children’s books that are inappropriate in every way for any child, and that certainly includes yours. Before buying, I recommend that you quickly read through every page and scan the images (good habit if you use the library, too).RELATED: Patriotic heresy: 4 examples of tangling faith with the flag Tom Williams/Getty ImagesWhat to keep out of your home (and a bonus arts curriculum idea)Since we’re talking about things to avoid, here’s one that will probably involve some discipline on your part. But the truth is, your child could go without any screen time for the first 5 or 6 years of his/her life and be the better for it. Andy Crouch’s book "The Tech-Wise Family" suggests no screens till age 10.Studies demonstrate that screen time is a net negative for young children, so don’t create a habit that will be painful to halt. If you have already allowed it, pull back now — the sooner the better.Don’t read Kindle children’s books. Don’t let them play video games. Don’t teach them they need a screen to be entertained.You may have to teach them this by example. GET OFF YOUR PHONE.Do you want a child who wants to sit in front of a screen being entertained? Or do you want a child who loves to play and learn outside, talk to you, and spend time reading books together?I cannot state this any more clearly: SCREENS BAD.However, there is one way you can use your TV for a net benefit. Play symphony orchestra performances (easy to find on YouTube). Your children may learn what musical instruments look like, but more to the point, this will provide outstanding early music education as they listen during daily activities and while they play.Your first curriculum purchasesWhat follows is a brief selection of really good books you may find helpful, in a number of categories.Very first booksYou won’t have any trouble finding cloth or bath-time books. Sensory books, with textures the child can touch, are also great starters, like:"See, Touch, Feel: A First Sensory Book" by Roger PriddyBoard booksJust about anything by Sandra Boynton. Favorites:"Moo, Baa, La La La" (also a Christmas version, "Moo, Baa, Fa La La La La")"The Going to Bed Book"Since we just mentioned a bedtime book, just a couple of must-haves:"Make Way for Ducklings" by Robert McCloskey (it ends with the ducklings settling down for a peaceful night’s sleep after an adventure!)"Big Red Barn" by Margaret Wise Brown"Sleepyheads" by Sandra J. HowattA couple of Christian board books that are more age-appropriate:"God Cares for Me" by Kristen Wetherell"Don’t Forget to Remember" by Ellie HolcombClassic picture booksJust a few favorites:"Each Peach Pear Plum" by Janet and Allan Ahlberg"Dear Zoo" by Rod Campbell"The Rainbow Fish" by Marcus Pfister"Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel" by Virginia Lee Burton"Millions of Cats" by Wanda Gág"The Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats"Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault"Caps for Sale" by Esphyr Slobodkina"Curious George" by H.A. Rey"Harry the Dirty Dog" by Gene Zion"Ox-Cart Man" by Donald Hall and Barbara Cooney"Mr. Gumpy’s Outing" by John Burningham"The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle"Freight Train" by Donald Crews"The Carrot Seed" by Ruth Krauss"Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric CarleMany of these authors have more than one classic book, so browse their other titles as well. And, of course, there are thousands of other outstanding picture books. So many books, so little time!Guides to children’s booksMy number-one book recommendation for parents, right from the start, is to obtain a really good guide to children’s books. All of the volumes below are excellent, and I don’t think it’s going overboard to have all of them in your personal home library. And yeah, these can be on your Kindle, if you prefer!"Honey for a Child’s Heart: The Imaginative Use of Books in Family Life" by Gladys Hunt"Books Children Love" by Elizabeth Wilson"Read for the Heart: Whole Books for WholeHearted Families" by Sarah Clarkson"Books that Build Character" by William KilpatrickCongratulations!You have just completed Home Education 101 — the Preschool Edition. Everything you need to know to prepare and get started “homeschooling” your precious littles:Take them outsideTalk to themLove books with themYou cannot beat this combination.A version of this essay previously appeared at She Speaks Truth.

Bryan Johnson, the transhumanist founder of the neurotechnology company Kernel, sold his digital payments company Braintree to eBay Inc. for $800 million in 2013, then pursued his bio-hacking obsession headlong, tinkering with his body in the hope of pausing the aging process and potentially even evading death.In a 2023 interview with Bloomberg, Johnson revealed that in addition to staying out of the sun, he was preparing to invest at least $2 million on his body with the aim of having the body and organs — penis and rectum included — of an 18-year-old. To this end, he hired a team of over 30 doctors and health experts to monitor his every bodily function.'My stomach is eating itself.'"What I do may sound extreme, but I'm trying to prove that self-harm and decay are not inevitable," Johnson said just months before supplementing his usual supply of rejuvenating plasma from so-called blood boys with blood from his son.Johnson, who calls himself "the healthiest person alive" and founded the "Don't Die" health cult, revealed last week that he has been diagnosed with an incurable disease."Bad news #1: I have an autoimmune disease. My stomach is eating itself," the middle-aged transhumanist wrote in an X post. "Good news: I'm going to try and solve it," he added.Johnson suggested that he developed autoimmune gastritis during a period in his life when he was juggling "stress and grind" and let his health slip.Autoimmune gastritis is an inherited chronic inflammatory disease that occurs when an individual's immune system attacks their stomach lining cells. According to the Cleveland Clinic, this condition can lead to an increased risk of developing small neuroendocrine tumors in the stomach and an increased risk of gastric cancer.RELATED: Transhumanism is coming to destroy the human soul © CORBIS/Corbis/Getty Images"I just discovered it in May. I'm unsure how long I've had it," the transhumanist said. "AIG causes irreversible damage: nutritional deficiency, anemia, and over a long horizon, elevated cancer risk. When AIG is discovered today, standard medical care concedes defeat, stating that nothing can be done except managing the condition, no matter how awful or lethal the effects."Johnson indicated further that his supposedly healthy living regimen failed to address his low iron levels.'Bro so busy trying to not die he forgot how to live.'Autoimmune gastritis destroys the stomach's parietal cells, which reduces secretion of the gastric acid required for absorption of inorganic iron.Only after the supposed "healthiest person alive" overhauled his medical team and underwent further testing was his incurable condition revealed.While there is presently no cure for autoimmune gastritis, Johnson said that he and his team are "going to try and solve my AIG."Johnson's non-terminal diagnosis appears to have only worsened his health obsession."We fill our days mostly on things that are trivial next to what we ultimately care about. We know, deep down, however, that in the noise of it all, health is easily forgotten until it’s the only thing that matters," the transhumanist wrote.Bryan did not immediately respond to Blaze News' request for comment.Following his disease reveal, Johnson lashed out at those whose who, according to his paraphrase, suggested that "bro so busy trying to not die he forgot how to live."In response, the transhumanist offered a pessimistic and reductive interpretation of the world, suggesting that people ultimately construct personas to shield themselves "from the terror of their inevitable death," then "to make this irreconcilable pain invisible to themselves, they dissolve themselves into the group and enact its rituals."He proceeded to characterize himself as a heroic figure — the "abstainer" from "societal death rituals" who "reveals to the room that they are drunk."According to the transhumanist — who takes hundreds of pills a day, follows a strict plant-based diet, has injected some of his son's blood, and has spent a fortune in a futile attempt to stave off the inevitable — Johnson's critics aren't troubled by his decisions but by "their reflection in the mirror."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

For many conservatives, Project 2025 represented an actual blueprint. Its supporters argued that America finally had a plan to enforce existing laws, restore accountability, and take a weed-wacker to a bloated federal bureaucracy. It was a genuine road map for restoring sanity after years of government dysfunction. Reasonable people can debate its policy specifics. But at least the conversation centered on shrinking government overreach while strengthening it where the system had genuinely failed.Project 2029, the Democrats' answer to Project 2025, takes America down a far darker path. Its opening sales pitch is practically impossible to oppose: Protect children online. Keep teenagers away from addictive, IQ-draining social media.On paper, it reads like a manifesto every exhausted parent would happily sign in blood. After all, most Americans have looked around and concluded that social media is the digital equivalent of handing a toddler unlimited candy, fireworks, and a triple espresso before bedtime. If TikTok were a real-world babysitter, it would probably encourage your 8-year-old to lick shopping carts for internet fame.Kids will adapt. The surveillance infrastructure will stay forever.Protecting children matters. So too does it matter that good intentions have a funny habit of checking in for the weekend and staying for generations.Inside the trapThe cornerstone of Project 2029 is the "Kids Over Clicks" proposal. It aims to ban social media accounts for anyone under 16 while forcing platforms to strictly verify users' ages. Supporters frame this as simple common sense. Critics see the first pieces of a much larger surveillance system falling into place.That’s because you cannot reliably verify a person's age online without verifying exactly who he is in the physical world. Clicking a box that says "Yes, I am 18" is about as trustworthy as asking a toddler who drew on the walls. Serious age verification requires government identification, facial recognition scans, digital credentials, or another permanent method that ties your online activity to your real-world identity.Every major expansion of government authority arrives carrying an affable, even adorable message. Sometimes it’s national security; sometimes it’s public health. This time, it’s the kids. Nobody wants predators targeting children online, and nobody wants 12-year-olds disappearing into algorithm-driven rabbit holes filled with exploitation. The concern is entirely genuine. The proposed solution, however, deserves equal scrutiny.Think about the children 10 years from now. Imagine growing up in a country where creating an anonymous online account is automatically viewed as a suspicious, near-criminal act. Where every major website explicitly demands your digital papers before allowing you to read or participate. Where speaking freely online increasingly resembles checking in at an airport. Children raised inside that system won't experience it as unusual or oppressive. Fish rarely file complaints about the aquarium.RELATED: New Senate bill punishes chilling of online speech — if it passes Bjorn Bakstad/Getty Images Contrary to conventional wisdom, anonymous speech isn’t just a shield for internet trolls. It has protected whistleblowers exposing corporate corruption, domestic abuse victims seeking safe havens, political dissidents challenging powerful institutions, and ordinary citizens asking uncomfortable questions without fearing professional execution. Replace anonymity with mandatory identification, and many of those crucial voices simply vanish overnight. Not because they are criminals, but because they are human beings who quite like avoiding angry mobs, career-ending screenshots, and awkward conversations with the government.Supporters argue that responsible citizens with nothing to hide have nothing to fear. That argument has aged about as gracefully as New Coke. Databases get hacked with laughable frequency. Governments change, administrations rotate, and policies written for one benevolent purpose always find exciting new careers serving entirely different masters. A child safety database readily becomes a fraud prevention tool, a national security asset, and finally an information enforcement mechanism. Bureaucracies possess an almost supernatural ability to discover fresh, urgent reasons for expanding yesterday’s temporary measures.A glimpse of the futureAmerica has watched this movie before, and the sequel is usually longer and much more exacting. Other countries are already offering a depressing sneak peek. Britain has introduced sweeping online age verification hurdles. Australia is testing hard restrictions on younger users. Across Europe, digital identity systems continue to mutate. Each promised careful limits. Each insisted ordinary citizens had absolutely nothing to worry about.Yet once that tracking infrastructure exists, dismantling it becomes politically impossible. Governments rarely surrender powers they have already collected. Why would they?Perhaps the ultimate irony is that determined teenagers usually find a way around technological barriers anyway. VPNs exist. Shared accounts exist. Older siblings know well that they often can be bribed. Adolescents have been bypassing parental controls since the invention of parents. The kids will adapt. The surveillance infrastructure, however, will stay forever.America absolutely should protect children online. Parents deserve better, more intuitive tools. Platforms should face devastating financial penalties when they deliberately exploit young users. And data collection targeting minors deserves strict, uncompromising limits. Those are debates worth having.But protecting children should never become a convenient political shortcut for building systems that actively erase privacy for everyone else. The children we want to protect today may someday inherit an internet where every single opinion carries a permanent, unremovable digital name tag.That might sound incredibly reassuring to a Democrat. It sounds terrifying to me.

Pennsylvania State Trooper Michael Pahira Jr. was conducting a routine inspection of a tractor-trailer on the side of Interstate 81 South near Ashland on July 1 when a second tractor-trailer allegedly helmed by a Haitian illegal alien careened his way.The incoming tractor-trailer sideswiped the 44-year-old trooper's cruiser, careened into the truck that Pahira was inspecting, then struck the trooper. Although nearby construction workers were able to pull Pahira free of the flaming wreckage, he was pronounced dead 90 minutes later.'Because of these reckless policies, a Pennsylvania State Trooper is dead.'In the wake of the horrific crash, the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association and lawmakers demanded answers — especially to the question of how the illegal alien, 33-year-old Michael Bon, managed to obtain a non-domiciled commercial driver's license.While a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles attempted to displace blame for her agency's issuance and renewal of Bon's CDL, the U.S. Department of Transportation has corrected the record, making abundantly clear that Massachusetts helped set the stage for Pahira's untimely demise.According to the Department of Homeland Security, Bon was released into the U.S. by the Biden administration in July 2024. He filed an application for Temporary Protected Status in October 2024, which was never granted.The DHS claimed that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services terminated Bon's parole in June 2025, but the Haitian refused to leave and has remained in the country illegally — living in Massachusetts — ever since, the Boston Herald reported.RELATED: Blue state gave Haitian illegal alien a commercial truck driver's license — 'and now a good man is dead' Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesIn March 2025 — months prior to the termination of his parole — Bon obtained a non-domiciled commercial driver's license from the MRMV. After his transition to illegal alien, Bon had his CDL renewed in February 2026.Amelia Aubourg, a spokeswoman for the MRMV, recently attempted to assign blame for Bon's licensing to the Trump administration, telling the Herald that the "Non-Domiciled Commercial Driver’s Licenses program is a federal program," and that "this individual was ruled eligible based on the Trump administration database and allowed to drive by federal law and Trump administration policies."What Aubourg neglected to mention was that the Trump administration issued a rule in September 2025 barring DACA recipients, asylum-seekers, refugees, TPS holders, and other noncitizens from obtaining, renewing, upgrading, or transferring non-domiciled CDL licenses.This interim final rule, which would have barred Bon from renewing his CDL in February, was understood at the time to be a lifesaving measure.U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a Sept. 26, 2025, statement, "Licenses to operate a massive, 80,000-pound truck are being issued to dangerous foreign drivers — oftentimes illegally. This is a direct threat to the safety of every family on the road, and I won’t stand for it. Today’s actions will prevent unsafe foreign drivers from renewing their license and hold states accountable to immediately invalidate improperly issued licenses."After reviewing emergency legal challenges filed by the American Federation of Teachers and other liberal outfits, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit put the rule on hold in early November.As part of the broader campaign to torpedo the rule, Massachusetts led 18 other states in filing a joint submission characterizing the rule as unnecessary and unlawful.Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell (D) claimed in a November 2025 letter to Duffy that the rule's "dramatic new restrictions on eligibility for non-domiciled commercial driver's licenses and commercial learner's permits are unlawful" and complained that it would "strip nearly all of the country’s 200,000 non-domiciled CDL holders of their licenses and their livelihoods."Campbell not only claimed that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration lacked the authority to impose the restrictions but cast doubt on whether "these restrictions provide any additional safety benefits."Campbell was joined in her opposition by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and numerous other radical Democrat officials.A source familiar with the matter told Blaze News that "had those rules been in place during the driver's February 2026 license renewal, [Bon] would have been deemed ineligible for renewal."A U.S. Department of Transportation spokesperson told Blaze News, "Secretary Duffy has spent the last year in office reining in a trucking industry allowed to operate like the Wild West under Biden and Buttigieg. That's why the Department issued a final rule stopping unqualified and unvetted foreign drivers from obtaining licenses to drive commercial trucks and buses.""States that operate recklessly and fail to enforce our common-sense rules will be held accountable," added the spokesperson.Blaze News did not immediately receive a response from Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell's office or the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, which oversees the MRMV.The Trump administration successfully issued its final rule preventing unqualified foreign drivers from driving big rigs on March 16.As for Michael Bon, he has been charged with felony vehicular homicide, felony vehicular aggravated assault, misdemeanor counts of recklessly endangering another person and involuntary manslaughter, and various traffic offenses.U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has also lodged a detainer asking Pennsylvania officials not to release Bon from jail."This Haitian illegal alien was RELEASED into our country by the Biden administration, and the sanctuary state of Massachusetts gave him a commercial driver’s license," DHS acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said in a statement."Now, because of these reckless policies, a Pennsylvania state trooper is dead after a crash that was 100% preventable. Illegal aliens should not be driving trucks on America’s highways," added Bis.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!