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Ask HN: Best Books for Homeschooling?

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Ask HN: Best Books for Homeschooling?

Hi HN,

This is a somewhat of a hypothetical question as my kids are still a few years away from school, but I'm thinking ahead.

What are some amazing books that you would recommend for homeschooling? This will either be full-time homeschooling (if lifestyle necessitates and resources permit), or part-time (supplementing the public education system).

The main subjects I'm interested in are:

History

Focusing not on what happened, but on why it happened - mainly the technological, geographical, social and political causes (e.g. how did UK geography, politics (strong merchant class), social changes (emerging cities) and technology (invention of optical glass) lead to the industrial revolution, and why it didn't in other cases (ancient Rome, China, India))

My history education was so extremely boring (we literally learned about what pastries were eaten at the palace of some French king e.g. the Sun King) that I thought all of history was boring, but after school I read a lot of books/articles that made history extremely interesting (starting with a rather short "economic history of the world" document that I can't find again :/)

Biology / chemistry

Inspired by one of my favourite articles I should have loved biology and my job at a biotech startup, and advanced visualisations such as https://x.com/SmartBiology3D (although most of these are still wrong, as they picture the cell as a mostly empty space, but I guess they are pedagogical).

Biology is basically extremely advanced nanotechnology that we're only barely beginning to understand - one of the most interesting and perspective fields of study, while also being extremely practical and hands-on. I can only wish my primary/high school education inspired me this way!

https://jsomers.net/i-should-have-loved-biology/

Math / Physics

I studied math so I'm less concerned about this, but on the other hand my physics education is severely lacking (I don't even understand how electricity works!) so books in this field would be appreciated as well.

Discussion 11 comments · 9 points · tomp · 2024-08-12
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