Several have asked me how we did our science labs in our homeschool.
Four kids and four science classes and lots of experiments and projects! How can you fit it all in each day? The simple answer is we didn’t! I had a set time each day for science for each child. When that time was up then science was over for the day. I didn’t add enough time in that time slot to do the extra projects. However, what we did have was a way to see the projects during that time because we did video classes for our science lessons. Therefore as the project or experiment came up they did get to hear about it and or see it right there during the video class.
Did we ever actually do the experiments and activities?
YES certainly! However, we did pick and choose what we would do. During their actual lesson time, I asked my kids to either write down or place a post-it note on the page or projects they would like to do. Then we would pick from that list on the weekends and do several of them on the weekends during family time.
As my kids grew older and got into high school, we worked with another family to do our labs. We did labs once or twice a month with the other family. We had a blast working through biology and chemistry labs.
Now in the high school science class, there are lab kits that go right along with the class. These kits are very well put together with the majority of what we need to accomplish the labs at home.
Did labs work for our family?
YES! One of the colleges actually asked us how we as a homeschool family did our chemistry and our labs. With confidence, I was able to share that chemistry was taught by a BJU Press Homeschool Distance Learning teacher. Labs were done hands-on with another family. This was more than acceptable to the college. We also now have a college graduate with her Bachelor of Science in Biology. She even wrote a little about it right here on Reaching Families. BJU Press Biology for Homeschool – Facing the Biology Challenge
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