Tag Archives: homeschooling

Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments (book review)

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One of the more popular books I’ve ever reviewed here, judging by the number of people who read the review, was this one on home chemistry. Now, let’s see if we can meet or beat the physical sciences with this new title:Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture (DIY Science). Robert Bruce Thompson, author of the chemistry book, has teamed up with Barbara Fritchman Thompson, to produce this new work.

The book has a lot of experiments in it, organized in a reasonable way, with complete instructions on everything. I would prefer to see more graphics illustrating the procedures and materials, but there are illustrations and they are good. I would just like more. The 30 or so experiments (parsed out into a much larger number of procedures) is targeted towards middle and high school students and in particular, home schoolers, but also hobbyists. The Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture (DIY Science) is designed to be used along side a biology text.

One of the best ways to evaluate a book like this may be to look at the Table of Contents. So, here it is, unformatted: Continue reading Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments (book review) →

100 Amazing Experiments: Book

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New York Academy of Sciences Children’s Science Book Award Winner Vicki Cobb has a new volume called “See for Yourself: More Than 100 Amazing Experiments for Science Fairs and Projects (Second Edition)”

Actually, it isn’t entirely new. It’s a second edition, but updated.

This is for 10 year olds and up, and it does in fact have 100 ways to make glue, fake old documents, extract DNA, do interesting anatomical experiments like finding your blind spot, produce your own ink, hypnotize your friends, make crystal flowers, etc. etc. all with common household ingredients.

It is paperback, richly illustrated with fun pictures, inexpensive and the stuff looks mostly like it woudl work. The perfect gift for the 10 – 12 year old (though I’d go as young as 8, franky) who has everything, especially those who might be far away because a book is easy to ship.