BJU Press Blog -

Barriers to Joy from the Fall

December 3, 2019 by Ben

Have you ever had a frustrating experience when teaching your child? I know I have. I teach my children Grade 1–3 history. Last year was the first year I taught my second daughter history, and it was smooth sailing. But this year, it has been a challenge. The material is more advanced and abstract. Tears have come several times during our first three months. We’ve hit some hard barriers in both teaching and learning already.

In an earlier post, I mentioned some Scriptures that teach the importance of having joy in learning. We have a scriptural expectation for a joy in our work. Furthermore, there is a connection between our work and our learning. Naturally, there’s a parallel between joy in our work and joy in the work of learning. But if we have a scriptural expectation for joy in learning, why don’t our children always experience that? There are three things the fall has broken that can prevent that joy.

Barriers from a Broken Creation

When Adam sinned, the earth was cursed. And now all of creation groans under sin (Romans 8:22). Because of the curse, nothing is as easy as it was designed to be, including learning. Just like Adam, our child will learn “by the sweat of [his] face” (Genesis 3:19). Learning isn’t easy for kids, and teaching isn’t easy for moms and dads. We cannot reverse the fall. But like farmers who toil to extract food from the ground and yet still rejoice in their labor, we can toil at learning with the expectation that there will be joy in mastery.

Broken Hearts

Not only is learning harder, but our hearts can also come to detest things we should love. Romans 3:11 reveals that there’s no one who understands; we all wander out of the way; we are all unprofitable. The lazy man doesn’t want to work even though God calls it a blessing. Sad to say, our children’s hearts can hate the good that God gives us, including learning. As parents, we’ve been given the high calling of shepherding our children’s hearts. So when we see signs that their hearts are opposed to something good, we need to direct them wisely back toward it.

Barriers from Broken Pedagogy

Pedagogy is the method or practice of teaching. Regrettably, we sometimes unintentionally contribute to our children’s frustration with learning if we adopt poor methods of teaching.

Remember those farmers that Isaiah spoke to (Isaiah 28:24–28)? They learned to farm effectively by observing how God’s creation worked and adjusting their farming accordingly. That’s what good teachers do too. They observe the way children learn and adjust their methods accordingly.

For homeschool parents, it’s easier to “data dump” than it is to create an engaging learning experience. Our challenge is to create the learning experiences our children need for success. Have you ever found yourself saying or thinking:

“Here is the information—now learn it.”
“Read the book and answer the questions.”
“Here’s a list of terms to know for the test.”
“Memorize these facts.”

It’s so much easier than taking the time to craft a learning experience. But when we take the easy way, we’re not helping our children. We’re teaching in a way that’s expedient for us, and not in a way that fits how our children are made to learn. As homeschool parents, we need to be constantly working to discover the ways God intends children to learn, and then conform our teaching to that creational norm.

As a result of the fall, there are going to be real barriers to joy-filled learning. The material is often hard, and there’s a fleshly aversion to hard work. My children won’t want to do it all the time. There’s also a temptation for me to choose easy paths for teaching instead of creating learning experiences that enable them to learn. In a future post, I will share some of the strategies I’ve found to help create a joyful learning experience despite our fallen condition.

3 Thanksgiving Traditions for Young Families

November 26, 2019 by Guest Writer

With the hectic hustle of the modern holiday season, it’s easy to let moments, hours, and whole days slip by without taking the time to really celebrate together. Would you like to be calmer and more intentional about the holidays this year? Then focus on establishing one or two meaningful traditions that you can carry on through the years to come. Here are three Thanksgiving traditions to get you started.

The Twelve Days of Thanksgiving

This tradition is popular in my family because it offers so many opportunities for thankfulness. On each of the twelve days leading up to the holiday, our thanksgiving centers on a specific theme. We’ve used themes like community helpers, favorite foods, relatives, leaders, or creation.

For example, if the day’s theme is creation, each person in the family names one aspect of God’s creation for which he or she is thankful. Sometimes we write those things on a chart or a list, put them on paper “leaves” and paste them onto a Thanksgiving tree, or jot them down on slips of paper and put them in a box or a jar. You can also use the Twelve Days of Thanksgiving poster!

Volunteer and Give Back

For many families, thanking community helpers and volunteering are year-round habits, but holidays offer opportunities to take those efforts further. Make it a Thanksgiving tradition to give back and show others the love of God.

Giving back can involve signing up the whole family at a local children’s home, pet shelter, or soup kitchen. Or, for families with smaller kids, it can be as simple as paying for a police officer’s meal at a restaurant or purchasing much-needed supplies for a homeless shelter.

Wonder Walk

Enjoy that crisp, delightful fall weather and take the whole family for a “Wonder Walk” on Thanksgiving Day. Everyone can participate, from the baby in the stroller to Grandma in her wheelchair. Troop through the neighborhood, visit a local green space, or hike in a nearby nature park. If your kids are older, you may even consider signing up for a nearby “Turkey Trot” or 5K race.

As you walk, encourage your kids to point out everything that makes them curious, happy, or thankful. From acorns to hundred-year-old oaks, from the blue sky to a sparkly rock, your family may be surprised how many treasures they can find along the way. And if it rains, so what? Break out the rain boots and umbrellas and take a Wonder Walk anyway!

Forming a family tradition is not only heart-warming—it creates a hook on which you can hang future memories. It’s the beginning of a more structured, calming holiday season that leaves plenty of room for gratefulness and awe at the gifts you’ve received, as well as openings for using those gifts to bless others. We’d love to hear about some of your family’s favorite Thanksgiving traditions.

• • • • •

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.

Using Different Editions: What You Need to Know

November 19, 2019 by Jenna

You’re looking for books for your youngest child. Because you’ve gone through all the same subjects with your older children, you’ve got almost everything you need already. You just need new copies of the consumables. You pull up the website to order them, only to find that a new edition has come out. The things you need aren’t available anymore. Can you use the materials from different editions together?

I get this question a lot. I love being able to tell parents that, yes, you can use the two editions together, but it’s rare. A lot of times, mixing editions seems cost effective, but it isn’t worth the hassle you’ll go through trying to make them compatible.

How Do Editions Change?

Let’s be real here. At BJU Press, our writers don’t completely rewrite a textbook to produce a new edition. That just wouldn’t be practical, especially when some content may not need to change. So what do we change before we release a new edition of a textbook?

• College Readiness and Best Practices

National standards for each subject and best practices for teaching different age levels tend to change regularly. We don’t actively adjust our materials to align with standards. However, we do research and make adjustments in the students’ interests. That way, we can assure parents that their children will be prepared for the next grade level, standardized tests, and current expectations for college freshmen. Additionally, research about how children learn continues to show educators that children need more than paragraphs of information to learn from. They need activities, visuals, and opportunities to use technology in a safe way. Many new editions update the textbooks according to that research. Sometimes these updates are more noticeable in the teacher edition than the student edition, but they do appear in both.

• BJU Press Standards

We also want our textbooks to measure up to our standards. Each new edition should have clear biblical worldview integration, teach critical thinking skills, and show children and teens that they can take joy in learning. We also add new technology resources as they become available.

• Design and Page Layout

Design is a key component to successful textbooks. Can a child understand certain kinds of information better from a paragraph or from an infographic? Even the amount of white space on a page can help or hinder a student’s learning. In many new editions, we’re adding design elements to encourage learning and comprehension.

• Errors and Feedback

Even in carefully prepared textbooks, mistakes happen. Issuing a new edition gives us a chance to fix errors from the previous edition. We also take the opportunity to incorporate some of the suggestions we’ve received from educators using our materials.

Problems with Using Different Editions

Not all new editions will have every type of change I’ve listed, but they usually do have several of them. And sometimes, the amount of change a textbook needs means that it will get heavily rewritten. Whenever we release a new student edition, we’ll also release updated versions of corresponding materials so that everything matches up. It doesn’t matter how much or how little the student edition has changed.

Some of the modifications we make may seem minor, but they can still be difficult to work around if you’re using materials from two different editions. Design updates can completely change the layout of the book, meaning all the page numbers are different in the new edition. That doesn’t sound like a big deal until you’re trying to grade your child’s reviews.

Updates to national standards, teaching strategies, and our own standards can lead to big changes in review questions and activity manuals. You’ll have to double check both versions to see which questions you have answers to, or create answers for anything you don’t have an answer to.

Obviously, total rewrites or heavy rewrites won’t be compatible with older editions, but even light changes to student activities and lab manuals can make the corresponding answer key obsolete.

Using Out-of-Print Materials

We always highly recommend that you get the updated materials, but we do understand that getting a whole new set of books isn’t always an option, especially if it’s an expense you weren’t expecting. You may be able to find out-of-print materials through third-party sellers, especially nonconsumables such as teacher editions and answer keys.

However, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll be able to find student activities or labs from a third-party seller. In those cases, you can use the newer labs and activities with your older materials, provided that you get the newer answer key as well. Activities and labs often teach skills that are important for the course, but aren’t always directly covered in the student edition, so you don’t have to have the new student book. However, please note that this may not hold true for science courses Grade 7 and above. Life Science (5th edition) incorporates new lab activities that relate directly to skills from the student edition. These same skills weren’t covered in the same way or as directly in Life Science (4th edition). When activities do relate directly to the student edition, you can always skip them.

Unfortunately, if you are unable to find an unused copy of a student worktext, we can only recommend that you invest in the new book.

Of course, it’s up to you if you want to try mixing editions anyway. We wholeheartedly believe that each new edition is an improvement in the material. And, for you, it’s always worthwhile for your sanity and peace of mind to be using materials that are meant to be used together.

Finding Downtime in a Busy Homeschool Day

November 12, 2019 by Megan

I am a homeschooling mother of four young children, but sometimes I feel more like a juggler in the circus. My days are spent trying to juggle myriads of responsibilities—laundry, cleaning, cooking, teaching, grading, planning, shopping, driving, and so on. Who has time for rest and downtime? It’s my job to make sure no responsibilities get dropped.

But not even an expert juggler can juggle forever. The stress of constant activity will surely lead to disaster. And it’s the same for us. Homeschool life can leave us feeling physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually burned out. Sometimes we need to set aside our normal flurry of activities and just rest. We homeschool moms need some downtime. How do we get it? Here are some ideas.

Make Downtime a Part of Your Routine

Homeschool moms are not the only ones who will benefit from a break from the demands of a homeschool day. Our kids need some time away from the books as well. In my homeschool, we always take a midmorning break (around 9:30) to have a snack and get some energy out. If the weather is nice—and sometimes even when it isn’t—we go outside and take a short walk or play a few minutes on a nearby playground. The exercise and fresh air helps my kids’ concentration levels and helps me manage the stress of the day.

Teach Your Kids to Rest

Only one of my children still naps during the day, but all of them have some quiet or rest time. During that hours or so they are supposed to work independently on quiet activities (coloring, writing, sewing, reading, etc.). This gives me some space to pick up a book of my own or work on a creative project, and it gives my kids the opportunity to pursue some of their own interests.

Intentionally Put Aside Your Work

After my kids go to bed, I often move into high gear; after all, these after-bedtime hours are usually the most productive hours of the day. I do get a lot done in the evening. But there comes a point when I must say “enough” and put the work aside. I need some time to decompress. And I need sufficient sleep.

In the middle of this very busy season of life, it’s often hard to take a break and claim some downtime. You may feel guilty doing it. But consider what Ruth Chou Simons writes in her book Gracelaced:

If you feel worn out, friend, it’s a pretty good indication that our infinite God made you finite for a purpose. He is reminding you that resting isn’t just a good idea; it’s His example and standard for us. Our all-powerful God does not grow weary, and yet He chose to rest on the seventh day of creation. (p. 52)

So, homeschool mom, stop and take a deep breath. You were not created to do everything. You were created to rest in the only One Who can. So enjoy the freedom to rest.

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.