Arianna

6 Time Management Tips for Your Homeschool

November 3, 2020 by Arianna

As a homeschool parent you juggle teaching, housework, cooking, shopping, loving your family, and working from home daily! Perhaps you want to be better at time management, but you don’t know where to start. Time management is not as far out of reach as you might think. Here are a few tips you can implement into your routine to help you manage your schedule better.

1. Get in the Right Mindset for Time Management

If you’re like me, you may see time management tips and roll your eyes, thinking, “Yeah, I’ve already tried that, and it didn’t work!” I’ve learned that when strategies don’t work or stop working, it’s often because I have the wrong mindset. Instead of following a formula, time management is about committing to change. Learn to recognize patterns that don’t work for you and your family and remove them. Be prepared to make mistakes and take the time to learn what is best for your situation.

2. Spend Time Getting Organized

Taking time to organize your home and your schedule is an investment that saves time later. Begin working on one thing at a time and don’t get distracted by everything else that needs to be organized. Setting realistic expectations for what you can get done alleviates discouragement and frustration.

When it comes to your homeschool, you may want to work with one child at a time to figure out an organizational plan that works for that child. Another approach could be organizing the plan and materials for one subject at a time. Involve your kids in the process! Make it fun by color coding subjects or types of material. Giving everything a proper home and labeling it will help the kids know exactly where everything belongs.

3. Use a Calendar

A calendar can help you visualize in advance what the schedule for a day or week will be so you can avoid overbooking. You can use a weekly or daily calendar to create cushions between tasks and events. Generally, plan for things to take longer than expected. It’s better to plan ample time between events rather than having to rush if things don’t quite go as planned.

Consider the amount that you can handle and work around that. Being a rushed and overwhelmed parent does not benefit your children. This principle applies to your kids’ homeschooling as well. Evaluate the amount of work and assignments your kids do each day. Having fewer subjects or homework assignments in one day may mean that your kids can then spend more time working on difficult concepts or the most important projects. Be flexible!

4. Write Everything Down

Practice starting new months, weeks, and days with a list of things to accomplish. Write them in a journal or in an app so that you can reference them later. Once you’ve written everything down, prioritize your list. Put them in categories such as “urgent,” “to do later,” and “if there’s time.” Writing things down frees up your mind to not have to worry about remembering them later.

As your kids grow older, encourage them to keep lists of their own assignments and chores for the week. Keeping track of their own work fosters children’s independence and their ability to prioritize and schedule their own workload.

5. Don’t Multitask on Important Things

If you have work to do that requires concentration, find a block of time in your schedule to do uninterrupted work. When your mind jumps between work and homeschooling and what to plan for dinner, you won’t be productive! Designate focused time for each significant task. Set a timer and work until the timer goes off. If things pop into your mind that you need to do later, write them down, move on, and address them when you finish.

Setting focus time for lessons and assignments will also help your children’s work. Encourage them to sit down and work on one thing, without doing anything else, for a set amount of time. Doing this helps them learn to focus and gives them independence so you can work on your own tasks.

6. Plan for Rest

Rest is just as important to plan into your schedule as anything else. God intended rest to be a regular part of our rhythm of life, and He modeled it by resting on the seventh day of Creation. Times of rest are reminders to enjoy life, and to let God be in control. Resting is a practice that is important to teach your children. Times of fun and play and relaxation help reduce stress and make the brain more profitable when you return to work. Set regular times in your schedule to take a break on a daily, weekly, and yearly basis.

The most important thing to keep in mind about time management is that it is not about doing more. Being so busy you do not have time for one more thing does not necessarily mean that you have mastered time management. Learning to manage time wisely is learning when to say “no” so that you can say “yes” to more important things, like enjoying family time and being available for your kids when they need you.

Tips for Teaching Left-Handed Writers

October 27, 2020 by Arianna

If you have young lefties, you may be unsure of how to teach left-handed writers. But don’t worry! At first their natural tendencies may appear backwards or confusing to you but teaching them writing is very similar to teaching a right-handed child. There are just some important things you should keep in mind when you start teaching them.

Proper Pencil Grasp

Just like righties, they should use either tripod or quadrupod grasp. You should emphasize how to correctly hold a writing utensil. Holding the utensil with poor positioning, like using every finger or wrapping the thumb over the index finger, makes it difficult for lefties to see their own writing. The tripod grasp involves the thumb and index finger pinching the sides of the pencil while the pencil rests on the middle finger, allowing for better control. The quadrupod is a similar grasp but they will pinch with both the index finger and middle finger while using the ring finger for support. Also, having a higher grasp, about 1 to 1.5 inches from the tip, allows them to see the paper better.

Proper Paper Choice

Use loose leaf paper with your lefties as they are learning to write. Try to avoid three-ring binders and spiral notebooks, because these are uncomfortable for lefties to rest their arm on when they write on the right-hand page. It’s the same discomfort right-handers feel when writing on the left side of the page. The best writing situation for young writers, regardless of which hand is dominant, is to write on loose leaf paper with a hard surface right underneath. All of our early worktexts and activity books in K4 through Grade 3 use a hinge binding, so the pages can be easily removed and used outside of the book.

Proper Paper Placement

Teach your lefties to tilt the paper to the right. Paper tilting allows your children to naturally rest and move their arm and wrist. The hooked wrist associated with lefties is a compensation so they can see the text to the left of where they are writing. However, hooking the wrist results in smudged ink or graphite on the side of the hand and poor penmanship habits. Having students tilt their paper helps them place their wrist in a comfortable, correct position and keeps the text to the left of their hand visible.

Model Character Placement

Most traditional worksheets place character models on the far-left side of the page. However, it’s harder for lefties to see models on the left-hand as they write. Instead, models should be either the row above where the student is writing or on the right-hand side of the page. Here are some worksheets for our cursive font that place the models in a place where lefties can easily see them while writing. If you have worksheets with the model on the left side, you can create your own model in a different place for your children’s reference.

Proper Letter Formation

Your left-handed writers should learn to form letters in the same way that a righty does. For example, they should make their o with a counterclockwise stroke. Learning the strokes this way will increase the speed of their writing, because proper letter formation involves minimal strokes and naturally leads to the next letter.

The only difference in strokes will be that lefties will likely cross their letters right to left, “pulling” instead of “pushing,” specifically with lowercase letters “t” and “f” and with capital letters that have a bar like A, G, H and F. This difference is fine, and shouldn’t slow them down.

Correcting Mirror Writing

Some lefties may initially default to “mirror” writing where they form letters backwards and write from right to left. One way to train them out of this habit is to put a sticker or mark on the left hand of the page where they are supposed to start the line.

Keeping these tips in mind can help you and your left-handed writers have a solid start to handwriting. Some things may be confusing or difficult for your lefty at first. But with proper techniques and practice, they can become comfortable and confident in their writing.

Mastery vs. Spiral Learning

September 1, 2020 by Arianna

We hope that what we teach our children sticks with them, and that they build on that knowledge for the rest of their lives. But traditional approaches to education often fail to help children retain the material. Short units that focus on good test performance succeed in short-term retention, but do not result in learning that sticks with students long after they’ve finished the unit. However, different approaches that emphasize mastery of concepts help students retain material longer. Two dominant approaches for learning that sticks, specifically in math, are mastery and spiral learning. These learning strategies are tools you can use to choose and adapt curriculum to best support your children.

Mastery Learning

Mastery learning is studying one concept at a time in-depth, mastering it before moving on. This approach focuses on giving children as much time as they need to understand the material. Most traditional approaches have students working in time-constrained units where they move to the next unit even if they haven’t mastered the material. That approach can impede students’ learning. For example, children who don’t understand the concepts necessary for Pre-Algebra will eventually hit a wall because they have too many gaps in their knowledge. They may think, “I just can’t do math!” However, they likely just never mastered the foundational material. In a mastery learning approach, there are no restrictive time frames for learning the material. Students won’t feel rushed to understand all the material. They can move at their own pace to master the concepts.

Spiral Learning

Spiral learning is repeating a set of topics throughout the year, adding more depth to the material each time. For example, each unit may contain addition and subtraction but each treatment of those topics adds a new skill, like increasing the amount of numbers in the equations. If students don’t master the material the first time, they will have many opportunities to practice that material throughout the year. There is no pressure for a child to learn the material the first, second, or even third time.

Frequent practice and review increases a child’s ability to retain information. Spiral learning also encourages flexible thinking and critical-thinking skills because students will have to decide what concept to use to solve a problem. Learning multiple concepts at the same time also encourages them to see relationships between concepts.

Our Approach

While we generally use spiral learning for all courses, at BJU Press, we use both of these learning strategies in our math materials. Our approach promotes mastery as students are continually reviewing skills and uses the spiral approach to cover the same concepts in greater detail each time. Our materials emphasize understanding and application beyond memorization. They provide strategies for helping students master the material and practice real-world application.

Both of these approaches have advantages, and the wonderful thing about homeschooling is that you can match your curriculum to your children’s needs. Perhaps a mastery approach works best right now, but maybe in a different season a spiral approach is better. Remember that there is no timeline for when your child needs to achieve mastery. However long learning takes is the best timeline, and whatever way your children learn is the best approach for you.

Why We Study Literature

August 11, 2020 by Arianna

When I was in elementary, I spent hours hiding away in libraries, reading as much as I could before my parents made me leave. Looking back on my life, I can see how certain books shaped who I am today. Most people have at least one book that has profoundly influenced them. If reading has this much power, then learning to study literature is one of the most important parts of a child’s development. Reading is so much more than just understanding what words mean. It has the ability to shape children’s minds and experiences in positive ways.

We Study Literature for Joy

By reading beautifully crafted literature, children can learn to experience the wonder of God’s creation. Stories that use humor, clever metaphors, or lovely subjects are delightful to read. God created a beautiful and delightful world, and He desires that we find pleasure in it. Also, children can find joy in seeing how an author reflects the image of God through the creation of stories.

For Broader Experiences

Through literature, readers can travel across space and time. They can visit unique and distant places they might never visit otherwise. These experiences can ignite children’s imaginations. And as children gain knowledge of diverse people and places, they will learn to see beyond their own limited experience.

For Empathy

An important part of loving others is learning to understand and empathize with them. Literature allows us to enter the minds of people who think differently than we do. Stories allow readers to feel the emotions, difficulties, successes, and struggles of people who are not like them. You can help your children practice discernment through this process. By recognizing false teachings, children will be able to articulate their own beliefs more clearly.

For Bible Study

Literature study is especially useful for Christians, because the Bible is literature. It contains narrative, poetry, and drama as well as an abundance of literary elements, including metaphor, hyperbole, and irony. Learning to read literature well—such as understanding context or interpreting metaphors— equips children to better study and understand the Bible.

Reading literature can be one of the most important tools in shaping your child’s mind. Children have not fully formed their opinions and values, and they have not yet cemented their loves and hates. Good literature can influence your child’s heart to love good, to hate evil, and to embrace God’s truth.

Non-College Options for Homeschoolers

July 7, 2020 by Arianna

As your children approach graduation, are they planning for college in the fall? Or are they wondering whether a four-year college is really the best option for them? Depending on finances, career interests, or other factors, your children may want to pursue a career path that doesn’t require a college degree. Fortunately, there are plenty of non-college options available to them!

Trade School

Trade schools, also known as technical schools or vocational schools, offer one- or two-year programs. When children finish the program, they earn certification in a specific field. These schools teach technical job skills for occupations that are often in high demand. If your children want to be electricians, web developers, cosmetologists, or dental hygienists, trade school may be the best fit.

Apprenticeships

Apprenticeships are similar to trade schools because they provide hands-on training for a specific job. However, one advantage of apprenticeships is that they non-college options that include paid work. Another advantage of apprenticeships is that they provide an opportunity to work closely with professional mentors. Through apprenticeships, your children can receive on-the-job training and experience in fields such as plumbing, welding, or masonry. This experience increases their chances of finding long-term employment.

Entry Level Jobs

Entry-level jobs often do not require a four-year college degree. Your children should consider their skills, values, personality traits, and life goals. This process can help your children identify the best entry-level jobs that match their interests. Work with your children to customize their resumes for the jobs they apply for. Resumes should highlight any qualifications, experiences, or skills that are relevant for the position they are applying for. Encourage your children to make connections by reaching out and talking to people. Through those connections, you may learn that a family friend or someone in your church or co-op knows of an open position that would be a great fit.

Entrepreneurship

Many famous companies—such as Wendy’s, Dell, Whole Foods, and Facebook—have been founded by or have CEOs who do not have college degrees. If you are homeschool mompreneur yourself, you’re likely well aware of effort needed to be successful. The keys to being successful as an entrepreneur are hard work, strategic vision, a desire to learn, and a willingness to take on increased responsibility. If your children have an entrepreneurial spirit, encourage them to gain experience before starting a business by finding a job in the field that interests them. Encourage them to learn from their supervisors, spend time wisely, and develop diligence.

The important thing to remind your children during this stage of life is to not worry! Failure or disappointment is a great learning experience. They don’t have to have their lives planned out perfectly. They still have lots of time to figure things out! As long as your children seek the Lord first and try their best, they will find joy in whatever they do.