Science

Is there any subject that's more frakking frustrating then science for the homeschooler who wants to take a secular approach? The only grade school curriculum I've been able to find is the Singapore, "My Pals are Here," book. Some, like Real Science 4 Kids and Noeo leave discussion of creation and evolution to the parents but that seems like a fundamentally dishonest stance to take. Are they a science text or not? If so, they have a duty to present evolution.

So, like a lot of secular and none-delusional christians I'm left to hobble something together on my own.

Mostly, our approach is rather random and a bit chaotic. That's not completely bad. We touch on different things that interest the kids and generally have a good time. However, my daughter has said a few times that she would like a more structured approach. Also, when we don't have an underlying structure then a rational, detailed approach to observation and experimenting sort of falls by the wayside.

Now, I'm learning. I'm trying to build our own structure under the work we do, plan out units rather then random activities but jeez louise, it could already be done and I could just be buying it.

Anyhow. I have a plan. I think. Sort of. Rader's Biology 4 Kids has a really great site on biology that's nicely organized with links and quizzes. We'll use the site as our foundation and explore from there. We'll start with Scientific Studies. We'll read the first two pages on reasoning and then do this worksheet and experiment and probably this one as well. I'll follow it up with discussion so we can pick out the reasoning that went into both worksheets.

Okay. So that's one day down, right?