After the summer it can be a daunting task to get back to the homeschool regime. It would make your like a whole lot easier if you organized yourself and the homeschool supplies a few weeks ahead of this.Here’s a simple guide to get you ready to home school after the summer vacation.
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For homeschool students the summer is the ideal time to enhance their science skills by entering science based competitions. It could be essay competitions, or ones which involve actual working models. You don’t have to even travel physically to a specific location if you participate in the number of virtual science fairs run by certain organizations. Go through the list of science fairs that you can find online. Pick the one that appeals to you best and enter the competition.
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When you don’t attend a regular school there is a tendency for the summer vacation to be nothing great to be excited about. You know that school will continue as usual even if the rest of the regular school kids are having a couple of months off.This may be a good time to vary the routine for homeschool students.
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Summer is the perfect season to bring in new learning activities into the lives of your homeschooled children. You are not as focused on classroom activities, formal lessons are on a break, and its time to have some fun. Make that fun instructive and you have a set of learning activities that you can do in the summer holidays.
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There are more children being homeschooled today than ever before. The statistical data seems to suggest that most parents tend to prefer homeschooling their children rather than sending them to a regular school to attend regular classes. What is the reason for this drastic shift in the way education is imparted?
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Homeschooling has become a choice that more and more parents are opting for these days. The reasons for homeschooling may differ but it is undeniable that more children are being homeschooled by their parents today than ever before. A number of these homeschooling parents worry about just how well they are coping with educating their children. They may have high ideals but are they really succeeding in passing on the kind of instruction that they hoped to? This is a question that can be easily answered if the child is allowed to compete with his peers in contests.
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Festivals can be used as a great learning tool with your homeschooling class. As most festivals revolve around specific events (such as Independence Day or Thanksgiving)or individuals (such as St. Patrick’s Day or Christmas) your child can be taught about this cultural history in a fun filled manner.
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A number of reasons exist for parents to send their children to a regular school. There are just as many reasons if not more for parents to make their children follow a homeschool program. Let us consider a few of these reasons.
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Many homeschooling parents enjoy teaching their children at home. They can be quite organized about the time they spend in the “classroom” and equally particular about the play time that their children enjoy. It can be however quite a herculean task to come up with fun activities day after day for the children to do. After sometime all the ideas in the text books get exhausted and the children still want things to do.
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Science is all around us. In the flutter of the butterfly or the roar of the car engine we can find science related principles to study. There is always the possibility of converting anything that you see into a science observation. Take it one step further and you can make it an interactive science activity. Be it biology, chemistry or physics, we are surrounded by possible homeschooling science activities.
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As a homeschooling parent you will need to keep records to help you with the daunting task of teaching all the subjects to your child at home. Things would perhaps go easier if you were able to separate these records into different heads giving you an easier overview of what you have already done, what you wish to do and what all your child has accomplished. The easiest way to keep records is to break it down in terms of time.
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It can be difficult for a parent to get the degree of formality required to make the transition from parent to teacher in a homeschool. This is especially true when you are starting out homeschooling your young pre schoolers. In this case it comes in handy to establish a formal identity for the homeschool. Here is what you can do to make the transition from parent to teacher easier for your child to understand.
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Unlike in Germany, where homeschooling is actually illegal, in Canada homeschooling programs are legal. The regulations for home based learning come under the provincial jurisdiction. This means that each province in the country may have a somewhat different set of rules to follow for homeschooling your child. This is similar to the United States where each state has a different set of legal rules for homeschooling.
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While homeschooling is legal in all 50 states in the US this is not true of all other countries. In some countries in Europe, such as Germany, it is illegal to homeschool your children. So it is indeed lucky for you if you have the choice of following a homeschool program for your child no matter where in America you live. In fact you can even teach your children at home when you live abroad for some period of time as long as you conform to the legal requirements of the state that you will return to live in.
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Homeschooling means different things to different people. Some think of homeschool as a means to teach the child all that they were taught, others want their child to decide what he or she really wants to learn and then teach them that specific topic. There are different methods that a parent can use to teach a homeschooled child. Of these unschooling is the most controversial as it leaves the progress of the education solely on the shoulders of the child being taught.
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The study of science is characterized by attending classes of theory and then putting it to the test in a laboratory experiment. With parents who teach homeschool science is the lack of a formal laboratory in the home a limiting factor? While some may think so, it need not necessarily be so. There are many ways to conduct experiments and the lack of a laboratory need not be a limitation for a home school student if the parent is able to harness the power of available resources.
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Unit studies allow a parent to teach a child all possible aspects of a topic or theme in a single schematic manner. This means that if a child is learning about hometown he will learn about the geography of the state and the location of the hometown. Then he will learn about the places of interest in the place which deal with the history of the hometown like museums, the city hall and other related places.
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Moving from homeschooling to regular school can be a monumental step. It is a decision which can not be made lightly on the spur of the moment. For the process to be smooth and the transaction to be successful certain tasks need to be taken care of before hand.If you went through your initial education as a home schooler and now want to get into a regular high school you will need to get a few things in order before you can join classes.
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As you fend off a crisis in your life it may well affect your ability to deal with the home school curriculum simultaneously. There can be all kinds of special situations where you may face an out of the way crisis. It could be a simple thing like the death of a near and dear person, or something far more catastrophic such as a physical natural disaster like an earthquake or a tornado aftermath. Truth is a crisis of any magnitude can make it nearly impossible for you to continue your regular home school schedule and studies.
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A few decades ago regular schools were the only logical choice for schooling because most parents just did not have the resources to teach their children at home even if they wanted to. Thanks to the advance of technology this is no longer a limiting factor for parents looking forward to teaching their children at home. These days it is easy to get homeschooling help if you chose to teach yourself.
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Get them to do experiments

A hands on approach to home school science can make the subject your child’s favorite one. While it is important that the child understands the theory written in the science book, it is the experiments that make it an interesting learning experience. If you can capture the attention and interest of the child, the quality of learning will be greatly enhanced. The best way to do this is to ensure that the child is able to do at least one experiment per chapter. It will then become like the highlight of the school day, not to mention the fact that it will probably stay in the memory for a long time.
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A toy is the best teacher that a child can have. The more you play the more experience you gain. Science based toys are an excellent way to help your home schooled child learn more about the subject. There are a number of such toys that you can buy. Here’s a list of some such toys that can help the child develop a keen interest in homeschool science.
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The traditional “school at home” method which is similar to the different subjects being taught class after class in a regular school is not the only method that can be used for homeschooling. A number of more relaxed and flexible methods are often used by homeschooling parents. Here are a few of these techniques and a brief look at how you can incorporate them into your own homeschooling curriculum.
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Science is all around us. We don’t really need a classroom to observe different aspects of science at play in our daily life. Take the electricity in the house that makes such a difference to our lives, or something as complicated as the mass transportation systems of buses and trains in the city. The colorful blooms in the garden can be used to explain biology and the flying butterflies can be used for a discussion on the principles of flight. Everything uses science and it is this aspect that can help make homeschool science interesting.
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You have been wondering about how you will possibly teach your child homeschool science. Is it intimidating you because you were not a good science student yourself? It should not. You don’t have to be. Science is not a tough subject to teach, especially not to your own child. All you need is the right methods and you will be able to handle the job to your own satisfaction.
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Hands on is the best way to learn science. If you are teaching homeschool science to your children it is best to get them involved with the practical aspect of science. make them perform a number of experiments in all the topics that they study and you will find that their understanding and retention of scientific facts is much better. Unfortunately not everyone is able to cope with homeschool science as the grade levels begin to go up. Here’s what you can do then.
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As a home schooling parent the general idea is to keep the children gainfully occupied doing things that they can learn skills from. If they are not studying their school books, you will line up educational and informative activities for them to do. This stems from a belief that if the children do not have something to do they will get into trouble or fall behind their peers who are in regular school. While getting them to do these activities will help them gain an advantage it can also have a negative effect on the children. Having free time to themselves to indulge in activities that they want to is also important for well rounded development of a child.
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Keeping track of all that you have covered with your child over an academic session can be quite a daunting task if you are not in the habit of regularly noting down what was taught in the homeschool classroom. One way to make it easier to make your homeschool portfolio is to ensure that you maintain a homeschool planner regularly during the academic year.
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Recording the progress of your homeschooled child is an important part that many first time homeschooling parents do not pay much attention to. However if at a later date your child wishes to study in a regular school or college a yearly record of the child’s learning activities will be needed for the teachers to assess the child’s level of preparedness. Here is how you can make a homeschool progress portfolio for the academic year for your child.
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Homeschooling parents are usually striving to give the best of education to their children. They want to teach the children all that they should know in a relaxed and tension free atmosphere. This system allows them the flexibility to do so as and when they like. One major tool that the home schooling parents use is the computer and internet to get resources to make use of. It is quite common for homeschooling parents to use the computer in order to get material to teach their children, but they miss out on one big opportunity.
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As a homeschooling parent you are aware that there will be some subjects that you may not be very comfortable handling after a certain grade level. The basics are easy for you to teach in any subject, but if you have limited experience with teaching science, you and your child could get frustrated as the level goes higher and you are unable to answer all his questions. There are a few simple ways to deal with this challenge of teaching homeschool science.
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Organizing homeschooling activities can take a lot out of a parent. It is best to try and combine these activities with another parent who is homeschooling their children, or to use homeschooling resources that are available to you for free. This gives you some respite from the continuous planning of events that homeschooling can involve.In addition it keeps your children gainfully occupied.
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There are a few common mistakes that homeschooling parents tend to make and these five about head the list. These are not woes that are necessarily of parents new to homeschooling. Even those who have been teaching their children at home successfully for a while now can still end up making these errors. Being aware of the potential problem can help you to think proactively of possible solutions.
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If you are planning on considering home schooling for your child, it would be well worth answering these questions honestly. It will give you an idea about just how suited you are to become a homeschool teacher.
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You have struggled through the high school homeschool curriculum with your child and now its over. If he or she were attending a regular school there would be a formal Graduation Ceremony for you to attend. So why should a child miss out on a graduation ceremony just because he is homeschooled? Hasn’t the child worked hard at mastering the homeschool curriculum? Hasn’t the child graded well in all his tests and evaluations? Why shouldn’t you as a family celebrate the event in a graduation ceremony? Here are a few ideas for a graduation ceremony for your home schooled high school student.
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If you are planning to homeschool your children here is a set of skills that you should develop. They will help ensure that things run smooth in your home school classes.
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Traditional school begins in the morning and most teachers want the children to learn new topics while their minds are fresh. That’s why the heavy learning subjects tend to be taught in the first half before recess and the lighter and more physically demanding subjects tend to congest the second half of the school day in traditional schools. Is this the best way to organize your home school schedule? Not always. In fact most home schooling parents tend to differ when it comes to fixing their schedule. No two families will follow the same home school schedule.
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Since we can find some sort of science in every single activity we undertake in our daily routine, its not that difficult a task to boost your child’s interest in science even if you are homeschooling him. What is important is your attitude towards science. If you had enjoyed many activities based on science in your childhood it would be easier for you to pass on that interest, but for most parents science has hardly been a fascinating subject when they grew up. So what can you do to boost the interest of your child in science at home?
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To be able to develop a scientific understanding of common place events around us it is essential that children understand the basic concepts behind them. In order to do so they need to be taught a few fundamental basics across a multitude of scientific topics. Don’t worry about some topics or concepts being out of their grasp, once you begin teaching them, it will amaze you how quickly they pick up complex concepts. It all comes down to what you share with them and how you do it. Here are a few simple topics that you can begin with.
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If you have decided to make an infographic you need to consider three core components that go into the construction of any infographic. These include the visual aspect, the content and the knowledge being represented. Let us consider each of these core components in further detail.
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What are infographics and how do they help?

Infographics are those attractively displayed facts and figures that are commonly used to illustrate statistics. They can be in the form of time lines, flow charts, marked maps, pie charts, bar graphs, or vein diagrams. Its sort of like a visual representation of numeric data which makes it easy for the reader to understand the numbers involved. They are attractive and easy to remember as compared to just trying to learn up facts and figures by heart. They are used often in magazines and newspapers and can help improve the understanding of a subject at a glance. That is why its a good idea to use inforgraphics as a teaching aid in the homeschool classroom.
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In continuation from the last post we are talking about easy to do activities for elementary level home school science students. These activities help them gain a better understanding of the scientific processes that surround us, grounding them well in building a base for scientific understanding in the future. We spoke of forces, energy, magnets and electricity and now we move on to even more complex scientific principles.
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The popularity of homeschooling has never been higher. More parents are choosing to home school their children than ever before and this has also led to certain styles and models or homeschooling. One term which recently came to my notice was “Eclectic Homeschooling”. Here is what this new term is all about.
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Just being a homeschooler does not mean that your system of studies is the same as any other homeschooling family’s. Besides the traditional homeschooling technique which is modeled on regular school there are a multiple number of choices in techniques and methods available to homeschooling  parents today. Some of these are briefly discussed here.
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Homeschooling parents have a multitude of methods of teaching available to them today. Besides the Charlotte Mason Method, Montessori Method, and Unit Studies that were mentioned in the last blog post there are other techniques that are used by homeschooling families. Here we discuss a few more techniques that can be used by homeschooling parents.

 
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We have seen that a number of methods to teach homeschooling students exist. So what works best to teach science to homeschool students? There is no one size fits all solution to teaching science. The personality of your child will determine which method is likely to be more successful than the other. At the same time your guidance as a parent is important to introduce the child to the world of science in a systematic and easy to figure out manner. Here are a few tips and tricks that you can use while teaching science to your children.
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For someone who is relatively computer literate it can be easy as pie to find free homeschooling resources online. First open up a search engine such as google, bling or yahoo. Then type in a few keyword phrases related to what you are looking for and viola you have a whole host of websites waiting to be explored.

Unfortunately it can take a while to sift through the search results to find the websites that suit your purpose. This is where the inexperienced browser can get hopelessly lost, but you won’t get lost here. Take a look at these excellent websites that offer free homeschooling resources.
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Visiting the homeschool forums will show you that opinion is divided over having a formal curriculum or just developing your own among homeschooling parents. While some feel that having a formal curriculum is a necessary tool to help teach their children in an organized manner and cover all topics, others want to be more flexible in their approach to homeschooling their children. The truth is there is no “one size fits” all curriculum out there. You have to mix and match the best you can.
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Is looking for free homeschooling science resources eating into your teaching time? Here’s a simple solution. Check out the first website listed below to see what printable worksheets and papers you can use. And use the second website as a great way to pass the time in an educational manner for your children online.
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In homeschooling, as with any other task, it is possible to reduce your stress level by having clearly defined objectives and goals. So before the start of the academic year make a list of learning goals that your child needs to achieve in the coming year. Here are a few factors that you must consider before you set these goals and targets.
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It has come to light that colleges are accepting more and more homeschool students these days. Is this because a larger number of home school students are looking to join regular college nowadays or because it is relatively easier for home schooling students to be accepted in to regular college these days? We don’t know for sure, but here’s what we do know. Colleges love homeschool students for the following reasons.
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When you begin homeschooling your child there are a number of issues that you need to deal with. These include the reason why you chose to homeschool your child rather than send him to regular school, the objectives that you wish to meet and the methods that you will employ to meet these educational objectives for your child. Here also arises the question about whether the homeschool science curriculum you will follow will be a paid one or not.
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Homeschooling is a huge responsibility on the parents because it is them who will determine just how and what the child learns. Every parent has the child’s best interest at heart but does that translate into a good education? Some forethought and a bit of study of the child’s natural inclination can help fix this problem. All you need to do as a parent is prepare yourself.
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Thanks to the fact that you are homeschooling your children, you are in a uniquely flexible place. You can take your children on trips which would otherwise interfere with regular school classes. What’s more you can pick your travels in such a way that the children get a wide exposure to the world at large. Of course it is not possible for everyone to travel all the time, but you can certainly plan on a few special experiences by traveling to some renown spots from around the world. Here are a few experiences of a lifetime that you would probably enjoy just as much as your child will.
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There is an abundance of homeschooling material available in the market and online today. Parents can pick up books, workbooks, and practice sheets from a variety of different vendors. In fact on some homeschooling forums you can even download material that other parents are sharing for free. The question that now arises is, where should you buy your homeschool materials from? The answer depends on what you are looking for in particular.

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A homeschooling program includes grade wise curriculum, subject wise lesson plans and a comprehensive list of all the books that you need to teach them. Using a homeschooling program developed by experienced teachers can make your life as a homeschooling parent must simpler. Or it can complicate it beyond belief. It all depends on the kind of homeschooling program you pick and how well it gels with your children.

There are a number of homeschool supplies that you need to buy for each academic session for your children. Getting them in bulk at the beginning of the academic year can make it easier on you later on. An advantage of getting the homeschool supplies in bulk is that you can often bargain for and get a decent discount on them. Some retailers will give you anything from 5 to 15% off on the supplies you pick up.
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When you are homeschooling your elder child you may find it difficult to occupy the younger one with gainful activity. Here are a few home based science experiments for preschoolers which can help you introduce your younger one to the entertaining world of science.
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There are a number of “best homeschooling” website lists doing the rounds on different social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Some of them can be useful, while others turn out to be pure self promotion by the bloggers themselves. Some of these lists have been investigated and a summary of actually helpful homeschooling websites is provided here and in the upcoming blog posts. Remember this is just a small portion of the huge resource list that is available online.
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Homeschooling your children can be a rather solitary activity for the most with you being the only adult involved in your children’s schooling. Sometimes it helps to know that you are not alone. That is why it is interesting to read about the experiences of other homeschooling mothers through their blogs. And once in a while you may hit a resource that they are sharing which you may have use for. Given here are three websites that may help to offer you a different view on homeschooling than your own.
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Teaching a few children at home is just as demanding as teaching a classroom full of children in regular school. To ensure that you can deal with the presentation of material to your homeschool students it would be a good idea to have some tools to help in the homeschool classroom. Here is a list of suggestions regarding teaching aids.

Dealing with challenges is part and parcel of homeschooling your children. Here are a few common problems that you may face and suggestions on overcoming them.
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As per legal state requirements you have to grade your child’s test papers when you home school them. This allows the state representative to gain an insight into how the child is progressing in his lessons. Don’t let the thought intimidate you. Take a look at how you can grade the test papers and what a typical grade scale should look like.
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Planning out how you will spend your day is an important tool for any homeschooling parent. If you must balance household chores and running errands along with teaching your children their lessons it stands to reason that your time must be well segregated into slots. Here are some things to keep in mind before you set up a home school schedule for your children.
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Teaching works better with visuals. That is why the classroom has a board for the teacher to write down salient points and may be make a diagram or two to explain the facts better. This is why seeing a video is more likely to help you remember concepts. Today there are any number of videos floating on a number of websites online. The trick is finding ones which are actually useful, entertaining and educative all at the same time.
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There are a number of websites dealing with scientific experiments and theory available on the internet. Not all of them are reliable and it’s important to peak your student’s interest with the right website. Here are some science websites that you can encourage your home school students to explore on their own and as part of science lessons in the classroom.