Best Homeschool Science Curricula for Middle and High School
Are you looking for great homeschool science curriculum for your high school student?
Do you need science content that is easy for your child to learn?
Check out these friendly homeschool science curriculum options for Learning Abled Kids.
My FAVORITE homeschool science curriculum for teaching science to an audio-visual learner is the Discovery line of programs. The Discovery Channel’s Videoss are engaging to watch. For students who learn visually, the videos are full of images, action clips, etc., and the presenter appears infrequently. In other words, the Discovery Channel videos are not a “talking head,” lecture kinds of presentations. The graphics really help visual learners engage with the content and understand concepts.
Standard Deviants Science Programs
Standard Deviants Science Programs – These also make a great homeschool science curriculum. If you want a FUN, engaging science program unlike any textbook, a series of Standard Deviants DVDs can be highly entertaining for your high schooler in learning. The Standard Deviants Science Programs have series related to Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Anatomy, Geology, and more. Although we didn’t use these for most of our science programming, the episodes we did watch were excellent. To use as a curriculum, you would need to acquire the entire series in the specific topic area. Your child would watch the programs sequentially. There are associated program study guides available on the Standard Deviants website.
Adaptive Curriculum (AC) for Science and Math
Adaptive Curriculum (AC) for Science and Math provides science and math programming for high school and middle school. All of the AC modules are audio-visual and narrated with clear visual representations to help students understand the topic. Auditory and/or visual learners would probably really like this program. The units also have interactive activities which will be helpful for students with a kinesthetic/tactile learning style. The activities are point-and-click or drag-and-drop nature types of activities. They’re not highly interactive, but it may be enough for some kids. They have demos on their main site at http://www.adaptivecurriculum.com/us/.
Apologia Science
Apologia Science – Homeschool science curriculum especially designed for high school students with a Creationist viewpoint. The courses are written by a former university professor. They are readable and easy to understand. The courses have experiments which can be performed at home. The curriculum is backed by a question/answer support system. This is the Science curriculum we used and my guys really liked it. Apologia also provides Audio CDs of their textbooks for children with Learning Disabilities. They are a VERY supportive company. I can’t recommend them highly enough!
Home Science Tools
Home Science Tools – Science supplies, articles and experiment ideas! Find homeschool science curriculum, home science kits, microscopes, and everything else you need to make science exciting. Just about ANYthing you could want, this company has! We love them!
Thinkwell Homeschool’s Chemistry, Biology, and Physics
Thinkwell Homeschool’s Chemistry, Biology, and Physics – Online multimedia courses with teaching videos that are great to use for your homeschool science curriculum. These courses are used in universities across the USA. They are excellent for anyone seeking a college preparatory curriculum. Courses require online access. Therefore, you’ll want to be certain you use the order option indicating your are taking the course independently from a university if you are ordering for your homeschooled child.
NOVA DVDs & Videos
NOVA DVDs & Videos – Great content on a variety of science topics. For visual learners, in particular, this video series helps explain modern scientific exploration and concepts. The detailed, step-by-step process of exploration helps make concepts understandable. The colorful videography engages even “reluctant” learners. This series is particularly wonderful for middle to high school aged children. Although, even at an upper elementary age our children were able to gain a lot of concept knowledge from the series.
Introduction to Public Speaking and Essay Writing Courses
Introduction to Public Speaking and Essay Writing Courses – Although this is NOT science curricula, I want to mention this program because it will equip your child with much needed skills, if they are going into a scientific field. That’s because they will probably have to present or defend their research papers, particularly when it comes to working on a dissertation in college.
SO, I just thought this was as good of a place as any to mention Introduction to Public Speaking – Their public speaking course is perfect for kids who want to learn more about speaking effectively, or if you’d like for your child to develop this skill. It’s a skill many people don’t have, but it’s one that serves a person WELL in life.
When you purchase the full program, it comes with an Introduction to Public Speaking [Binder], which contains the needed course materials. Having the ability to speak well in front of people will boost your child’s confidence and give them a skill that will serve them WELL in the work world! While you’re there, check out their writing courses too… Theirs are the courses we used to get our kids college-ready, and they did awesomely in graduating from college with honors level GPAs.
For further information, check out our information on Multisensory Science Instruction for Learning Abled Kids.
—
Check out our other Science Unit Studies on our Homeschool Science Page.
