Dissection is easy... in fact biology in general isn't too bad for home labs. Physics can be pricy and sometimes prohibitively so, but frequently they can be adapted (try www.topscience.org for some good home-friendly labs). The hardest ones to cover are the chemistry labs. Not just price and safety, but disposal of chemicals. That's quite a trick... Actually it can be a serious issue with public schools too, but presumably they have a disposal policy or a hazardous waste contractor...

If you just wanted "labs" and nevermind which ones, I'd go with biology. But for chemistry you might have a harder time. We're currently arranging something with a grad student at the local univ. to do some labs at the college as a group, and one of our moms is also arranging for a homeschool AP class to partner up with one of the local private schools after hours, to do their labs at the school with their teacher (paid of course). It's not the easiest thing in the world, but depending on what's around, you might find something good.

We had a series of geology hikes that beat out any in-school or in-home lab ever a couple years ago, led by a public school geology teacher and covering three counties over several weekends... We paid him rather well for that... actually I hate to even add up how much it cost! but it was worth every penny.


Erica