Rhian wrote:Here's a question from a prospective HSer. Although prospective in the sense of many many years away if I ever go down the line of spawning.
How do you deal with the practical side of STEM subjects? Physics, biology and chemistry all very rightly require hands-on approaches pretty regularly and sometimes they involve controlled substances. Even some tech subjects or graphic design for example, are less book based and I certainly wouldn't be capable of teaching those especially well.
Also, I'm aware some home-schoolers are part of a wider HS community that meet up every so often. Are any of you part of such a thing & how important do you think that is? I mean specifically close-knit groups or groups where you meet rather than a looser community where you just go online to look at ideas etc.
Worrying about junior and senior year high school science before you've even had kids is putting the cart before the horse, yeah? There are plenty of options by the time you get there that can be taylored to the individual kid. You could set up a lab in your house, you could find someone who teaches lab sciences to homeschool kids, you could get involved at a local maker studio. There are incredible resources for home science lab (see Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments by Thompson). There are also full dissection kits with everything from frogs to fetal pigs. Also home school cash be a year to year decision. It might be the right thing for K-5 and then you suddenly decide your local school has better options for your child/family and that is fine.
Internet homeschool communities can be a lot more close knit and supportive than you assume. I think I am the only one here homeschooling small kids which is when most people have access to local homeschooling groups. I'm not part of one, although I might accidentally be joining one that is forming this year. Some people find them really important. I don't, so much, because I am too busy actually doing school with my kids to go out and talk about doing school with other moms.
But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.