BJU Press Blog

Successful Learning

You want your children to succeed in their education. We do too. We offer practical tips for teaching your children math, science, writing, and more! These tips can be applied to any homeschool curriculum. There are also highlights of our new textbooks with examples of how our curriculum trains your children to have success in their learning.

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STEM Activities and Real-World Learning

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stem activities and real world learning
Have you ever considered how no single career your child could pursue leads back to just one subject? An artist draws on knowledge gained in both math and literature classes, a historian uses skills learned in science class as well as in heritage studies classes, and an astronomer needs strong foundations in both math and science to be successful. Even as a writer, I find myself drawing on skills from all subject areas to do my job well. That’s why interdisciplinary studies—studies covering several subjects—are so important in education. And STEM in particular is a big deal for parents and teachers alike. Let’s take a closer look at the world of STEM learning and what your children get from these activities.

What Is STEM?

STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. You might also hear it called STEAM, which simply adds Art (or the arts) into the mix. But STEM and STEAM aren’t all that different because design is an inherent part in every such activity. STEM activities require students to use their knowledge in each area to complete a task or to solve a problem. For example, consider this activity for building a better thermos. Designed for high school students, the exercise is similar to an insulation experiment in Science 5. To complete it, students need to know something about heat and energy, they need to use technology resources to craft their container, they need to understand principles of engineering and design to make their container practical and functional, and they need math skills to measure the components and test the container.

Why Include STEM Activities?

STEM activities are a chance for your kids to apply otherwise isolated skills to real-world situations. In other words, it’s the reason your students have been learning all those weird math formulas and science facts. It’s one thing to learn how to calculate the surface area of an object in math and to understand how different materials and sound waves interact in science. It’s quite another to apply that knowledge to designing something to amplify sound coming from a small speaker. But doing STEM activities goes beyond simply applying skills.

STEM activities also help your children to understand what they can do. As Christians, we are called to be responsible caretakers of God’s creation. How can we take hold of that responsibility? What can we do for the world? The simple act of creating something that is useful and serves a purpose can help children to understand what they are capable of doing as human beings created in God’s image. God didn’t create some people to be geniuses who solve all of the problems and the rest of us to muddle through as best we can. God has given each of us tools to accomplish His will—whether in caring for His flock or His creation. STEM activities help your children to see how—through study and a bit of hard work—they can do some pretty cool things.

Does this mean that now you have to go and find a whole bunch of STEM activities to add to your lesson plans? Not at all. Chances are, many of your science and math activities already include elements of STEM, even if they’re not labeled as STEM activities. Just take the time with each activity to let your students learn everything they need to.

Using Family History to Spark Interest

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Mapping out family history
History can be fascinating. Narratives about battles, discoveries, tensions, and alliances inspire many children to embrace learning. But I was never one of those children. Unless it was an area of history I wanted to know about—ancient Egypt, medieval Britain, or Edo period Japan—I wasn’t interested. Many children need to feel connected to the stories of history in order to embrace it. Your children may not be as picky about history as I was, but you’re probably familiar with the struggle to get them invested in it. One way to inspire interest is to make a personal connection to historical events. And what could be more personal than their own family history?

The Power of Stories

In college, I took a storytelling class. One of the things my teacher impressed on us was the power of family stories. In fact, she encouraged us to start a journal to record stories our parents had already told us plus any new stories they told. It’s often easier for children to remember the stories we tell than the dates in their history textbooks. You may not think of significant events from your lifetime as being part of history, but for your children, they are.

Many of us remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when we first heard about the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center. You’ve probably shared those memories with your children on the anniversary of the attacks. Similarly, your parents or grandparents may remember the assassination of President Kennedy or the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Our lives are full of these stories—moments that become significant for the next generation. Taking the time to share these accounts from your family history gives your children a personal connection to historical events. And, if your parents or grandparents can share their stories themselves, it gives your children an opportunity to build stronger relationships with them and create lifelong memories.

Researching Family History

Family stories can create connections that reach back to the twentieth century, but what about earlier? Researching family lineages is a recent trend that you might find useful in encouraging historical interest. Everybody hopes to find that they’re the descendant of a king or famous person. Though records are available publicly, online databases such as Ancestry.com make researching much easier. The system automatically makes connections to public records and existing family trees. The system will require a subscription fee, but you may not have to do all the work yourself. Many find that distant cousins have started the research already.

Going back generation by generation can ignite your children’s curiosity about history. What would your children want to know if they learned their fifth great grandfather was a Confederate prisoner of war during the Civil War? Would they see the colonies differently if they knew that their tenth great grandfather was among the first to settle in Germantown, Pennsylvania? You may not be related to someone famous, but even an unknown Confederate soldier can inspire learning.

You might also get a chance to look at scans of historical documents—such as census forms and marriage indexes. These records are primary sources, which are vital for the successful study of history. They’re not the Constitution, but they still show your children what their ancestors did, where they lived, and much more. Everything that you uncover is another glimpse into history and how our country has changed.

It’s impossible to learn about where we came from without also learning how history affected our ancestors. So if you’re struggling to inspire your children’s interest in history, remind them that the events they’re learning about in their history textbooks changed the lives of their ancestors.

Homeschooling a Special Needs Child

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homeschooling special needs
How did you feel when you first heard about your child’s learning disability? Maybe you felt shocked, angry, or sad. Perhaps you felt validated because your suspicions were confirmed, or reassured that your child’s struggles weren’t the result of a failure in parenting or teaching. But after those initial moments, your mind may have flooded with questions, worries, or even panic about the future. The good news, besides God’s all-conquering love for your child, is that plenty of resources are available for homeschool families with special needs children.

The Burning Question

You may be wondering, “Can I still homeschool my special needs child?” Of course you can! Every child learns differently, and often even children without learning disabilities require a tailored approach for particular subjects.

To homeschool a child with a learning disability, you may have to alter your style and adjust your expectations; and you’ll certainly need additional tools and training. But if homeschooling is something you strongly believe in, you can continue to guide your child’s education in meaningful ways.

Support for Parents of Students with Dyslexia

Marianne Sunderland runs Homeschooling with Dyslexia, a blog dedicated to students who face challenges with dyslexia and dysgraphia. This blog makes a wonderful starting point for families homeschooling a dyslexic child. Explore the resources Marianne offers to ensure that you have a handle on your child’s unique gifts and challenges. Marianne also discusses some of the more difficult choices you will face in your homeschool journey with children with dyslexia. Courses, books, blog posts, a newsletter, and a supportive Facebook group are all available through her website.

Help for Parents of Students with ADHD

Marcy Goodwin offers her knowledge and experience of handling issues with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in her blog, Ben & Me. Her posts offer tips for teaching math, managing with or without medication, and overcoming distractions throughout the school day. You’ll also find tips for refocusing attention and coping with emotions that accompany learning struggles.

Additional Support for Special Needs

For severe disabilities, such as autism or Tourette’s Syndrome, you should consider supplementing your skills and techniques with those of a professional. Therapists and some tutors are specifically trained to work with especially gifted children. If you need to pursue this type of help, don’t think of it as a failure—it’s just one more way you can give your child the best possible education.

The Importance of Assessment for Special Needs

If your child is struggling despite your best efforts, you might want to schedule an assessment. It may be a question you don’t want to face, but it’s better to know upfront whether there is a deeper issue that your child doesn’t know how to handle yet. Having your child assessed can be emotionally distressing for you, but it’s vital to future success! The earlier you know about the issues, the faster you can educate yourself and address those needs for your child’s sake. Don’t wait too long!

Remember, God loves your child with an everlasting, all-powerful love, and He has something special in mind for that young soul. With His help and the wisdom of other parents and professionals, you can do this!

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Rebecca is a work-at-home freelance writer, novelist, wife, and the mom of two bright-eyed little ones. She credits her success in writing and her love of books to her own mom, who homeschooled three kids from pre-K through high school.

Homeschool Freedom and How Far We’ve Come

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homeschool freedom
Families in the United States haven’t always had homeschool freedom like we do today. Countless parents have had to take a stand for what they believed was best for their children in order for us to reach where we are now. Advocating for the rights of parents to direct the education of their children is the mission of the Home School Legal Defense Association. Mike Smith, homeschool dad, attorney, and cofounder of HSLDA, shares the following story from the early days of the struggle for homeschool freedom.

A New Beginning

Shortly after I came to work full time at the Home School Legal Defense Association in 1987, I arrived at the office on a Monday morning, and a phone call was directed to me from a mom who we will refer to as S. B. She related the following:

S. B.’s family, consisting of mom, dad, and three children (two girls and a boy), who had moved from a metropolitan area of Wisconsin to a small Dutch town in Iowa. They were all excited because they were going to have chickens, a horse, and a garden.

When school started, S. B. enrolled her three children in the public schools. Within the first several weeks, Chris, the oldest of the three children and the boy, expressed an extreme dislike for school, and it was a chore to make him go.

Labeled

S. B. thought by volunteering to help in his classroom, she could make it more palatable. Much to her surprise, Chris had been labeled as special needs based on some testing done by the school before school started. He was in middle school and had never been diagnosed as having any learning problems. This had resulted in Chris being treated very cruelly by some of his classmates. Since he didn’t have any friends to start out with in school, he became very despondent from all the negativity surrounding school. Because he was not able to establish any friends, he felt all alone while trying to get through the day feeling the critical glares and hearing the sharp, piercing barbs of some of the students.

S. B. couldn’t get any sympathy or support from the school. “He’ll get over it,” they said. Well, he wasn’t getting over it, and to make matters worse, the principal told S. B. that they couldn’t have her coming to school with Chris anymore as it was disruptive to the class and appeared to be giving special treatment.

No Other Option?

Things did not get better, however, and S. B. had to physically take Chris to the school each day and walk him up to the school door to make sure he would go to school. Chris was doing poorly, and his morose temperament was not improving. To try to relieve the pain, she tried keeping him home, but she would get a call from the school telling her that Chris was truant, and he needed to be in school now!

Time went by and they reached the month of November—there was no improvement.  S. B. had considered other options, like moving, but that wasn’t possible, and there were no other schools in the area, including no private school options, and she had not heard of homeschooling.

On a Friday night, after the family had gone out to eat, the previously happy-go-lucky Chris (before he moved to Iowa and entered school) tried to commit suicide.  Fortunately, they were able to get him to the emergency room in time to save his life. S. B. knew then that Chris could not return to school on Monday, but she didn’t know where to turn.

A Possible Solution

She went to church on Sunday and shared a prayer request in her adult Sunday school class about her problem.  After church, a lady who was in the Bible study pulled S. B. aside and told her she had a possible solution to her problem, but she would need to talk to her later by phone because of the complicated nature of the solution.  This lady was a homeschooler.

At this time in the history of Iowa homeschooling, homeschooling was illegal and aggressively prosecuted by school districts throughout the state, unless mom was an Iowa-certified teacher and equivalent instruction was being offered. So, homeschoolers tried to exist underground, which was not always possible. HSLDA had numerous court cases in Iowa during this time period up until the law was changed by the legislature in 1991.

S. B. had that conversation that afternoon when she heard the term homeschooling for the first time.  She knew that this was the only hope she had to save her child.  But as her new homeschooling friend informed her, when Chris doesn’t show up for school Monday, she will get a call from the school wanting to know where he is. And if she tells them he’s not coming back to school and will be a homeschool student, she will immediately be threatened with criminal prosecution and maybe removal of Chris from her custody.

Hope for Homeschoolers

Her new friend then informed her of our organization and what we do, suggesting she call us the first thing Monday morning, which she did. We would normally require an application to be filled out before we could represent S. B. as her attorney, but we obviously made an exception.

Knowing it would get scary for S. B. with threats and with a court hearing almost certain, I wanted S. B. to demonstrate some conviction for the long haul. So, I told her she had been accepted as a member, but she had to do one thing for me. I told her she would have to call the principal and tell him or her that Chris was not coming back to school and that he would be homeschooled. She fearfully agreed. I told her to call me back as soon as she hung up with the school so we could start doing our thing.

Shortly thereafter, S. B. called back. She had spoken directly with the principal. I couldn’t wait to hear what happened. S. B. said, “Well, I spoke with the principal, and I told him that Chris was not coming back to school and that I was going to homeschool him.”  Then there was this hesitation, and I asked her what he said. With a slightly trembling voice, she said, “He said that I would homeschool over his dead body.”

“Okay, what did you say, or did you just hang up?”

S. B. said, “I don’t know why I said this, it just came out. I told him that I hoped he had his life insurance up to date, and then hung up.”

In It for the Long Haul

I knew then we had a mommy bear that would do whatever it took to protect her cub. To make a longer story short, we were able to get the county prosecutor to leave the family alone because we found out that Chris was labeled special needs/learning disabled because he scored below the fortieth percentile on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. This was the policy throughout the state of Iowa. Special needs students’ scores were not counted in the roll up of tests results for nationwide comparison of how public-school students did on standardized test scores. So, Iowa had figured how to be at the top of the nation at the expense of kids that never should have been labeled.

We were going to bring this up in court if they persisted in prosecuting S. B. for truancy.  They left the family alone, Chris was homeschooled through high school and ended up going to the mission field.  S.B. composed a poem that described her family’s ordeal.

The good news is that homeschooling is not as scary today and is legal in every state in some form.  Without moms like S. B. willing to face prosecution/persecution to homeschool, we would not have the homeschool freedom we have today.

Because of the efforts of Mike Smith and the rest of HSLDA, families have far more homeschool freedom than they once did. But HSLDA is still working hard to spread awareness of the homeschool option. They keep track of state requirements for homeschooling, and they keep lists of local homeschool organizations available for those looking to join their local homeschool community. Visit the Home School Legal Defense Association to see how they can serve you on your homeschool journey!

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Mike Smith is a homeschool dad, husband, and cofounder (with Mike Farris) of the Home School Legal Defense Association. He graduated from law school in 1972 and began homeschooling his children in 1981. In 1983, he helped start the HSLDA in order to defend homeschool freedom in California in the courts and before the legislature. Today, his children are homeschool graduates, he is the president of the HSLDA, and he serves as the HSLDA lawyer for California, Nevada, and Puerto Rico.

Accreditation in Your Homeschool

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homeschool accreditation
I hear a lot of questions about accreditation from homeschooling parents who want to know that their children are getting the highest quality education possible. You might even hear—or read—other parents talking about choosing an accredited curriculum for their children. But for homeschool families, accreditation doesn’t usually apply directly. So what’s accreditation all about, and how does it relate to your homeschool?

What Is Accreditation?

There are actually lots of types of accreditation—for food safety, for healthcare, and even for translation. An organization, group, or individual is considered accredited after it has passed an inspection by a group of qualified experts.

In other words, accreditation just means quality assurance. The type of accreditation most of us are familiar with is educational accreditation for schools at the college or high school level and below. For a school to become accredited, it pays an accreditation agency to do a review. You can find a lot of information about educational accreditation, including a list of accrediting agencies, on the Department of Education website.

So when you hear someone talking about educational accreditation, what they’re referring to is a brick-and-mortar institution. In some cases, they might be referring to an online learning program that is part of a school. Accreditation agencies don’t review textbooks specifically.

How Can You Get Homeschool Accreditation?

As I said earlier, for homeschoolers accreditation doesn’t usually apply directly. When a school requests a review, that agency will assess teacher qualifications, program quality, and current standards. So you can see how it doesn’t directly apply to a homeschool situation—unless you wanted to pay for a review. But that can amount to several thousand dollars.

However, there are some circumstances when it can apply to homeschool families. For instance, if you join an accredited homeschool academy, such as Bridgeway Academy or an umbrella school in your area, then your homeschooler can earn a diploma from an accredited organization.

If, on the other hand, you’re homeschooling independently, then your homeschool won’t be considered accredited. The textbooks you’re using have nothing to do with it. It depends completely on the group that issues your child’s diploma.

Is It Worth It?

Depending on the direction your child is going, accreditation can be an important piece of the puzzle. Being a member of an accredited organization while you’re homeschooling means that you have someone else backing you up. While some may require you to use a specific curriculum, others let you choose from a list of approved materials, meaning that you can still use your choice of textbooks. Additionally, the organization will take care of all your reporting and transcript needs. And if your student is college-bound, accreditation may be something he or she needs for admission to the college of choice.

On the other hand, going for homeschool accreditation might be like buying brand-name merchandise instead of choosing an off-brand product. Sure, the packaging on the one is prettier, but all the ingredients are just the same, so why pay more for the well-known name? Of course, we’re talking about your child’s education, not your grocery list. So aside from the price, what else should you know about accredited organizations? To begin with, joining an organization can mean giving up many of the freedoms that you cherish as an independent homeschooling family. Not all accredited organizations will let you have your choice of textbooks. Depending on the regulations of the organization, you might not even be able to set your own daily schedule.

You may want to do additional research about homeschool accreditation and the pros and cons of guaranteeing an accredited diploma. If you’d like to pursue accreditation for your children and use BJU Press textbooks, please contact a HomeWorks by Precept Consultant in your area.