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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Make Your Kindergarten Curriculum Work for You

How to Teach Paragraph Writing

Quizzing with Hands-on Activities

Role-Play and a Colonial Activity

October 30, 2019 by Jenna

Children love role-play. Toys become props, and a jungle gym, a tree, or even the living-room furniture can become a stage for a unique role-play session. They play house, make up war games, or act out stories they’ve read or seen in movies. And they will use anything—and I do mean anything—that they’ve seen or learned in their role-play, even if it doesn’t exactly fit there.

I remember as a child creating stories with matchbox cars in a doll playhouse. I also remember having a Polly Pocket as a Star Trek tricorder in one hand and a Lego® phaser in the other. As a teen, I watched a group of first graders playing after school. One little girl, the leader, laid out the game they would play. She was drawing from her lessons, her favorite stories, and her own rather wild imagination. It was one of the most intricate and regulated children’s games I have ever seen. It didn’t make a lot of sense, but none of the other kids seemed to mind.

One of the best ways you can get your kids engaged in a lesson is to fit it into a story that they can remember. If you give them fodder for role-play, you’ll see them reusing what they’ve learned in any number of ways. Here’s an activity for creating a hornbook when you’re teaching about how children learned in the New England colonies.

Making Your Own Hornbook

This activity comes from the Heritage Studies 2 teacher edition (Lesson 52). In this lesson, children learn about dame schools and how hornbooks helped the kids in the colonies to memorize their letters and the Lord’s Prayer.

Materials

Hornbook pattern and text
8½ x 11 sheet of stiff paper (construction paper, posterboard, or cardstock)
4 brass fasteners
24” length of string or ribbon
Sheet protector
Hole punch

Directions

Print and cut out the hornbook pattern. Use it as a guide to cut the stiff paper into the shape of a hornbook.
Cut out your sheet protector so it’s the same size as your hornbook. Hornbooks got their name because they were usually covered by a thin sheet of animal horn for protection. You’ll be using a this sheet protector instead of animal horn.
Print and cut out the alphabet and Lord’s Prayer text.
Punch a hole in each of the four corners of the sheet protector, text, and hornbook.
Attach all three pieces together with brass fasteners.
Punch an additional hole at the end of the handle.
Thread the string or ribbon through the hole and tie the ends to make a big loop. Children would often wear their hornbooks around their necks or tied to their belts so they wouldn’t lose them and so they could study them throughout the day.

Role-Play Starters for Using Your Hornbook

Once the lesson is done, use these starters to get your kids’ minds engaged in play with the things they’ve just learned.

Pretend you’re the teacher at a dame school and you’re helping one of your students (e.g., a sibling or willing parent) use his or her brand-new hornbook.
Imagine you’re a child in the New England colonies and you have to wear your hornbook for the rest of the day.

But don’t be surprised! You may find sometime in the future that your child’s hornbook has become a fan, a pizza peel (the giant spatula used to put a pizza in the oven), or a crossing guard sign as your kids use it in their play.

5 Apple Projects to Do After Your Orchard Visit

October 29, 2019 by Guest Writer

There’s nothing like the crisp, sweet taste of a fresh apple—except maybe the warm, sugary flavor of an apple cider doughnut melting on your tongue. For many families, visiting an apple orchard becomes a prized yearly tradition. But after all the apple-picking fun and the enjoyable orchard activities, you might be left with bushels of apples—more than your family can eat. Check out these five types of apple projects to do after your orchard visit.

• Edible Apple Projects

Apple pie is an obvious way to use up some of those apples, but don’t forget about apple cobbler, apple turnovers, apple pancakes, apple breads, and apple muffins. If you’d like to save some of these goodies for later, research freezer-friendly recipes.

Feeling ambitious? Try making your own apple butter, apple sauce, or apple chips. You can even use these apple activities as teaching opportunities! Talk to your kids about the chemical processes involved in changing the fruit from one form to another.

• Raw Apples in Everything

Try raw sliced apples in all kind of dishes! Make finding new ways to include apples in favorite meals a game with your kids. Thinly-sliced raw apples add a bit of extra crunch to sandwiches. They lend sweetness to salads and coleslaw. Dice the apples and sprinkle them over carrot soup, pumpkin soup, oatmeal, or cereal. You can even find recipes for spicy apple salsa!

• Apple Drinks

The cider you purchase at the orchard always seems to vanish too quickly. Why not make your own slow-cooker apple cider? You can also squeeze the apples and create homemade apple juice. If you’ve got a blender, add apples to smoothies for breakfast or snacks.

• Apple Candle Holders

If you’ve got some apples that are bruised or otherwise inedible, hollow them out and insert tea-lights. You’ll have an instant set of fall-themed, sweet-smelling candle holders that will beautify your kitchen island or your table for at least a week or so.

• Apple Potpourri

Follow this recipe to create delightful simmering potpourri that will make your home amazingly fragrant for the fall holidays. You can also create a dried version that looks and smells appealing. Consider putting extra batches in bags or jars as holiday gifts.

With some time, creativity, and the right recipes, you can take full advantage of the bounty you bring home from the orchard this year! Experiment with these apple projects, and let us know if you discover some favorite apple activities we haven’t included here. Happy apple-picking!

• • • • •

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.

Mom-to-Mom: Tips for Homeschool Mompreneurs

October 8, 2019 by Jenna

Are you looking to join the ranks of homeschool entrepreneurs? Many homeschool moms become entrepreneurs by blogging, vlogging, running home shops, or even working a regular job from home. You’ve probably weighed out why you should or shouldn’t do it, but how do you manage it? How can you balance being a full-time homeschool mom and running a business? We asked two of our homeschool entrepreneurs for their go-to tips on balancing their businesses and their family lives.

Mom-to-Mom with Megan

1. Prioritize

Before you commit to any type of business, I would advise you to take some time to write out your priorities. It’s hard to balance a business, homeschooling, and church and home responsibilities. I learned early on that I can’t do everything. I found it helpful to have a list of personal nonnegotiables written down so that I can refer to them whenever I feel overwhelmed. Am I doing the really important things? I’ve had to ask myself that question many times, and you probably will too. If you’re neglecting some of your priorities, you may need to give something up or scale back your business.

2. Take Care of Yourself

Don’t forget that taking care of yourself needs to be on that nonnegotiable list. I have to admit that I am not very good at self-care. For a long time, I felt guilty for taking any time away from my kids to care for myself. But I’m learning that self-care is necessary if I’m going to be able to continue all the work I am called to. I am not somehow cheating my family if I get a babysitter and go get that overdue eye exam, get my hair cut, or take an aerobics class at my local gym. In fact, not doing those things—not taking care of myself—will likely result in my someday not being able to care for my family as I should. So be sure to put outings, exercise time, and routine medical appointments on your schedule—and don’t feel guilty about spending that time on yourself.

3. Teach Quiet Time

Teach your children how to be quiet. Only one of my children still takes naps every day, but all of them have quiet time. It’s an hour or so when they are allowed to read, write, color, or work on a project independently, but they’re not allowed to interrupt me or talk to each other. It’s good for them to have some quiet time every day. It’s also good for me because I get some uninterrupted time to make phone calls, research a topic, or whatever I need to do.

Mom-to-Mom with Jennifer

1. Personal Space

It’s important and helpful to have an allocated work space for your freelance or other work-at-home projects. Whether it’s an actual office or just a quiet nook in your bedroom, try to create a workspace that’s completely away from homeschool areas. This will help you avoid distractions so you can focus on your tasks. Also, try to keep all of your work-related items organized in one place (e.g., laptop, tablet, files, portfolios, etc.). That way they won’t get accidentally mixed in with school materials. Extra tip: I always keep hard copies of work assignments in a small notebook just in case of computer problems. As much as possible, choose a space that is relatively quiet, well-lit, and free of clutter. The fewer distractions around you, the better you will be able to concentrate on your work.

2. Work Time

It’s also important to keep work time separate from school time. Even if you’re a great multitasker, it’s difficult to juggle school and at-home work at the same time—one is bound to suffer at the expense of the other. Setting aside specific blocks of time for work will help you stay focused and productive. Looking ahead and planning your work schedule is also key. I usually follow the same procedure whenever I receive a new work assignment. First, I look at the date it’s due and enter it into my calendar on my phone.

Second, I look at our family’s schedule to see all our other activities and plan my work times around them. This is especially helpful because I know for certain which days I simply won’t have time to dedicate to my project. On the days I do have free for work, I carve out at least one or two hours for my assignment. I like to work ahead and complete my project a few days before it’s due so I can read over it a few times and make any necessary changes. When planning your work times, remember to remain flexible for your family. There will be times your work gets interrupted by a “Mommy/Daddy, can you help me?” As spouses and parents first, we need to be willing to put aside our work so we can take care of our family’s needs.

3. Mind the Gap

Keeping work spaces and times separate from school will greatly help you in completing your at-home work in an efficient and timely manner.

Megan homeschools her four daughters while working with BJU Press to provide blog posts and other written content. Jennifer homeschools her two daughters while also working with BJU Press as a blogger and writer. We love working with these two ladies and are thankful for all that they are able to contribute as both full-time moms and homeschool entrepreneurs.

Adult Life Skills: Preparing Graduates That Think

September 24, 2019 by Jenna

Have you ever lost sight of the goal in the middle of the monotony of it all? Every day seems full of diagrams, algebraic equations, dates, and classifications. You can’t help but think, “What’s the point?” That’s the question that math students have always wondered about: “When are we ever going to use this?” But Mom, you’re not immune to that way of thinking either. Sometimes you just need to take time to remember what the point is. Yes, by homeschooling your children you’re ensuring that you have the final say about everything they learn. You’re taking the opportunity to disciple them so that they can live out God’s calling in their lives. And that’s a vital part of homeschooling. But do you really need to teach them the quadratic formula? Remember, you’re not just teaching them facts. You’re teaching them critical thinking skills. In other words, you’re teaching adult life skills.

Beyond the Facts

Those skeptical math students have a valid point. The technicalities of academic subjects aren’t all that useful for adult life skills. That complicated mathematical formula won’t help your child balance a checkbook. But what those math students don’t realize is that they’re not just learning facts. As they wrestle with a new concept, they’re also learning how to learn. They’re learning how to stay focused when working through long processes. They’re learning how to solve for missing information.

In the day-to-day minutia of academic studies, the facts aren’t important. What’s important is that your children are using their minds each day and growing. They’re learning to interact with new information, consider its implications, respond to it, make connections, and create and define new information. In other words, they’re learning to think.

Critical Thinking Skills and Adult Life Skills

Much like the math students questioning why they’re learning an obscure concept, many highschoolers are noticing that they can, say, rattle off all the taxonomic ranks of biological classifications, but they can’t apply for a credit card. It will probably come as a surprise to them, but many of the things they’ll need to do in their adult lives aren’t actually that hard to do. Applications for credit cards and other loans can be so easy to do that many of us do them without thinking about the serious implications of buying on credit. But at the end of the day, that’s exactly the kind of thing you want your graduates to be able to think about.

Young adults don’t need special courses on how to pay their bills and apply for loans. Companies have a vested interest in people paying bills and applying for loans, so they make those processes self-explanatory. But young adults do need to be able to consider the implications of missing a payment or having a credit card. Is a credit card really worth it? Is building one’s credit even as important as it seems? Would it be better to always pay for things with cash on hand? These are questions that your children will have to wrestle with and answer as they grow, but they probably don’t have the maturity and life experience needed to consider them now.

Your children can use the same processes they will use as they consider the implications and wisdom of having a credit card to their own future families. Interacting with their spouses and children will involve tons of new information that they will need to learn, respond to, and determine the implications of on a daily basis.

Ready to Answer God’s Call

God has some purpose in store for your children. They may find it today or not discover it until they’re thirty. The best way for you to prepare them for whatever God has for them is to teach them how to think, learn, and grow. There’s a lot you can teach them yourself, but you can’t possibly teach them all the adult life skills they need. There’s a lot they’re going to have to learn by themselves. But if you’ve been preparing them from the beginning, and if you’ve equipped them to learn, then you have equipped them for life.

How to Develop Critical Thinking Skills in Young Children

September 3, 2019 by Megan

Critical thinking skills are essential for success in today’s society. But they’re not something you can cram into your child’s head right before they graduate. The ability to thinking critically has to be developed. And developing it takes a lot of time.

What exactly is critical thinking? Critical thinking, sometimes called higher order thinking skills, or HOTS, includes the ability to make applications, analyze, evaluate, create, and synthesize information. Critical thinkers don’t just know information; they know how to use it. They can solve problems and think for themselves.

So if the development of critical thinking skills is such a crucial part of any homeschool, how can you as a homeschool mom start developing these skills in your young children?

Encourage Imaginative Play

First of all, you can give your young children plenty of unstructured play time. Play is an important part of childhood—it is truly the “work” of children. When kids play, they have opportunities to “try out” different roles and activities. I see this a lot in my home—my youngest daughter is just starting to enjoy pretend play. Last night she pretended to be a restaurant worker, and I was the customer. Her little two-year-old mind had to work through what she needed to fill my order. I ordered tea and salad, but for me to enjoy my “meal,” she needed to bring me a cup, a plate, a pile of pretend lettuce, and a fork.

When my older daughters play, their fantasies are a lot more complex. Sometimes they’re early American settlers trying to survive in the wilderness. Sometimes they’re managing orphanages or teaching in schools. But they’re always solving problems, applying the things that they know to different scenarios and exercising their brains. They aren’t wasting time.

Ask Questions to Encourage Critical Thinking Skills

• Ask a lot of questions.

Another important way you can develop critical thinking skills in your young children is by asking them lots of questions—and not just yes-no questions. Ask them open-ended questions that require thoughtful answers. The BJU Press reading curriculum is full of this type of questioning. You can read about how these questions help build interest and develop critical thinking skills in my article “Make Reading Lessons Interesting with Questions.”

You can use this type of question in everyday conversation too. For example, my oldest daughter is a voracious reader. One evening during dinner, my husband asked her about one of the books she had just finished reading. She immediately began to summarize the plot. But my husband was more interested in the moral tone of the book, so he began asking her questions such as “Why is that character considered good? Did that character do the right thing? How do you know?” Questions like these help her to analyze and evaluate the things that she reads.

• Get them to make predictions.

Second, ask your kids questions to help them make predictions. When my kindergartner learned about dentists and dental health, we decided to do an experiment that was suggested in the BJU Press Focus on Fives teacher edition (vol. 1). I hard-boiled three eggs and soaked them in a dark-colored cola to show what sugary drinks do to your teeth. Before I placed the eggs in the cola, I asked my daughter “What do you think is going to happen to these eggs? Do you think the cola is going to be good for them?” Questions like these will help her develop cause-and-effect reasoning abilities that are necessary for making applications.

• Ask them to compare and contrast.

Finally, ask your kids to compare and contrast things. This past week, I taught my kindergartner about the letter e. She was having difficulty writing the uppercase E and kept writing the numeral 3. So I started asking her questions: “How does an E look like a 3? What’s different about it?” This comparing and contrasting exercise helped her distinguish between the two because it helped her analyze the parts of each one.

Allow Your Kids to Fail (and Help Them Learn from It)

Our kids will never learn to think for themselves if we do all their thinking for them. So give them permission to try new things, and be prepared to let them fail. When I was about eleven, my mother was so sick one night that she let my brother and me make dinner without her supervision. We ruined thirteen potatoes that night learning how not to cook a potato. But we did eventually figure out a way to cook them to everyone’s satisfaction. Sometimes the best way to learn how to do something is to experience what doesn’t work.

Additional Resources

If you’re interested in learning more about the importance of critical thinking and how BJU Press homeschool materials develop critical thinking skills, check out the following articles.