BJU Press Blog

Whether you’re a homeschooling newbie or veteran, you’re probably constantly looking for ways to change, improve, and streamline your homeschool. We parents strive to give our children the best possible education. We are always evaluating our kids’ academic strengths, weaknesses, interests, needs, and goals. Often that means tailoring their schooling to fit their unique personalities and learning styles. We want to give them all the tools they need for a successful education. In short, we want to help them make the most of school—and it wouldn’t hurt if they enjoyed it, too! Hundreds of homeschooling programs vie for our attention (and dollars.) Thanks to the internet, online homeschool programs have a lot to offer.

Maybe you’re contemplating an online program instead of the more traditional textbook route. Is one approach better than the other? Does the quality of teaching differ? Will one help you run your homeschool more successfully than the other? We’ve researched and compared both of these options for you to help you reach your decision.

Learn about online homeschool programs

In your homeschool, how do you make learning choices for your children? Do you make decisions based on your knowledge, experience, and beliefs as their parents (parent-led homeschooling), or do you make choices based on their interests and natural abilities (child-led learning)? As you learn more about homeschooling methods and curriculum, you’re going to start seeing these terms a lot. In this post we’ll discuss what parent-led homeschooling is, and how you can decide if it works for you.

Learn about parent-led homeschooling

My husband and I get excited every time we hear about or meet a new homeschool family. It’s fascinating to hear their stories. Some started their homeschool journey during the pandemic because they were concerned for their child’s health. Some were frustrated with the uncertainty and crazy scheduling that accompanied pandemic schooling. And some were alarmed when they got a good look at their child’s curriculum. Parents have a host of reasons for homeschooling. But, in my view, there are no bad reasons—any reason to homeschool is a good reason. 

If you are new to homeschooling, the myriad of options may confuse you. Some curriculum publishers have designed their curriculum for Christian homeschoolers, but there are a growing number of secular homeschool curriculum options as well. Let’s take a look at the differences between these options so you can understand what might work best for your family.

[Read more…] about Choosing Between Secular and Christian Homeschool Curriculum

What about auditory learners? So far, we’ve covered most of the learning styles, activities for those learning styles, and why it’s important to use multisensory learning for all learners. Next, let’s take a closer look at auditory learners and see what strategies and activities help them learn. As you might guess, auditory learners tend to prefer learning through sound—they like spoken information and musical or other sound associations.

Keep reading

My family loves homeschooling. In fact, we love it so much that when my youngest daughter turned three, she started asking to join in. Many families start homeschooling their preschoolers like we did. She would watch some of her siblings’ video lessons; she would scribble on pieces of paper and place them in the folder where we kept finished worktext pages; she would even pretend to take the weekly spelling test!

We knew that we didn’t want my daughter to start kindergarten when she was three—she wasn’t developmentally ready for that and it would have frustrated her. Plus we wanted her to have time to enjoy being a kid. But we realized that we could do preschool activities at home with her. We could dedicate some time each day to work on some school-readiness skills through guided play. She was happy to be “doing school” like her older sisters, and I enjoyed watching her grow through our time together.

Keep reading to learn more about homeschooling preschoolers