BJU Press Blog

Guest Writer

Summer Fun Meets Summer Reading

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JourneyForth youth titles on a bookshelf

What’s the best way to keep your children learning during the summer? You guessed it─a nonstop parade of good books. With the strong pull of technology and outdoor fun, it may seem impossible for us to get our kids to sit still long enough to focus on a book. Regular library visits, a reward system, and some fun role-play after the summer reading session are just a few ways I recommend engaging your active brood in that most vital skill─reading.

Library Day

Scheduling a library day, either weekly or biweekly, sets aside a defined time for books and reading. If my kids have finished with their books, we return them on library day and get new ones. If a child is still enjoying a book, we renew it or bring it along to read while at the library. Make sure that the children know your family’s reading philosophy and guidelines; then set them free to wander among the shelves. They may come back with a random assortment of treasures─a pop-up book, a book about robots, a volume of fairy tales, and a historical novel─but if they’re excited about what they found, it’s a win-win.

Picture This!

Tiny preschoolers and early readers enjoy having plenty of pictures to go along with the story, like the beautiful illustrations in A King for Brass Cobweb. The images help their minds engage in the action, stimulating their imaginations. Eventually, the child’s imagination is mature enough to go off on its own, automatically creating the scenes and characters found in books without pictures. One way to help your little one’s imagination grow is to help him or her draw a new illustration for part of the story.

Chapter by Chapter

Once children pass the picture book phase, chapter books like Mice of the Herring Bone transition them to stories that last beyond a single reading session. They have a sense of accomplishment as each chapter ends, blended with anticipation for the next phase of the story. Read to them, and encourage them to read to you as well. Some parents of reluctant readers like to reward completion of chapters or whole books with a sticker, a treat, a trip to the playground, or a little time with the tablet or TV.

Girl Time

For moms of girls, starting a mother-daughter book club or girls’ reading time yields a closer bond and plenty of precious memories. My sister and I vividly recall curling up in our bunk bed each night, listening to my mother read Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. When I was older, I read the The Journeyman by Elizabeth Yates aloud to my mom while she cooked dinner every evening. To pique your daughter’s interest, find books that address current issues, such as Capturing Jasmina, with its thoughtful yet dramatic depiction of child labor and trafficking. Or look to the past and imagine what life must have been like in Old Testament times with the book Where I Belong.

For the Guys

Boys typically love action-packed stories. They also appreciate strategy, cleverness, and a fight for survival. Wartime struggles or wild westerns are perfect for teenage boys. If elementary-aged boys have trouble settling down to read, promise to act out the story with them after they read a chapter or two. For example, after reading part of Brave the Wild Trail, you might set up a cowboy camp in the backyard. Following a chapter of Jericho Ride, a father and son could create an obstacle course and make horses from branches or sturdy cardboard.

With boys and girls alike, associating imaginative play and outdoor fun with a great book brings them that much closer to a lifelong love of reading.

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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.

Five Great Goodbye Gifts for Your Class

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crayons in a yellow bucket with colored pencils, candy, and balls

Endings are almost always bittersweet. As you wave goodbye to each precious life that sat in your classroom this year, you may feel a mix of elation and sadness. Before they go, give each child something that shows your care and appreciation. It doesn’t need to be dramatic, expensive, or even super-creative. A tiny, simple gift can have a huge impact on a little one’s heart.

1. Buckets of Fun

For younger students, stuff a small plastic bucket with some treats and treasures that they can enjoy over the summer. Items such as pencils and erasers, crayons, and sidewalk chalk invite students to keep writing, drawing, and expressing themselves during the summer months. Lollipops, sticks of gum, fruit snacks, or nut-free chocolates appeal to every child’s sweet tooth. To encourage math skills, drop in a few pennies as well. Top the bucket handle with a ribbon. Then, write a note to the student expressing your appreciation and telling him or her to check with a parent before using the items in the bucket.

2. Game Time

Give your elementary students a reason to step away from video games, tablets, and computers this summer. Pick up inexpensive card games or board games for them, or purchase sets of small tennis-style rackets and balls. Inject a little extra fun and encourage outdoor play by offering each student a water gun as an end-of-year gift. Many of these items are inexpensive and available at your local dollar store.

3. A Thankful Heart

To thank the parents who have volunteered in your classroom or lent their brainpower to help with homework, have each student draw a picture or write a few sentences about the many ways that parents help children. Scan those pictures and messages, copy them, and assemble them into simple memory books that the children can take home to Mom and Dad.

4. Write Back at You!

If you want to stay in touch with your students, give each one a beautiful postcard, already stamped and addressed to you. Tell your students that if they write on that postcard and send it to you over the summer, you’ll send them a letter. The idea of getting their own mail should spur at least a few of them to exercise their postcard-writing skills.

5. The Reading Cycle

Summer reading shouldn’t be a chore─it should be an adventure. Pick up some pre-loved fiction books from your favorite used book shop and hand them out to your students. Keep the books high on fun and short on the page count. At the end of each book, tape a brand-new bookmark, along with a note that says, “For your next reading adventure.”

Use your imagination as you think about end-of-year gifts for your students. Whether it’s slapping a “You’re a Smart Cookie” label on a pack of mini OREO® Cookies or handing out pocket-size bottles of scented hand sanitizer, your students will love the gesture. Children can never have too many people to care about them. Let your students know that you will stand behind them, cheering them on through the summer and beyond.

OREO is a registered trademark of Mondelēz International group.

What end of the year gifts do you give your students?

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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.

A Mother-Daughter Reading Club

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Christy was not a reader. Neither was Karen, her mother. So they weren’t excited about the idea of a Homeschool Mother-Daughter Book Club—until they tried it. The dry run, which took place at their home, was so successful that the two decided to take part in several other club meetings!

The elements included in their reading club included four or five girls of similar ages, their mothers (age is not an issue here!), a book that they all agreed on, and a pair of hostesses with adventuresome spirits. Once the members had committed to reading a specific book by the day of the club meeting, the mother-daughter teams made their own reading schedules.

mother and daughter sitting on a porch reading from a tablet

 

What Mother Daughter Book Club Looked Like

Karen and Christy chose to set aside reading times through the week. Most days they tried to read on their own. But when Christy got bogged down, Karen would read to her. As the club meeting time drew closer, Christy often read aloud while Mom did the ironing. The other reading teams plugged along too, some making better progress than others, but everyone still keeping her eye on the goal—reading the whole book by the meeting time.

Activities to do at the club meeting evolved as Christy and her mom talked about the novel. They decided to start the meeting with a quiz to see who could match the characters with quotations from the book. Christy also searched for foods mentioned in the novel and then typed out the sections, including page numbers, where she found each one. She and Mom had to use some imagination, but those sections from the book determined what they served for refreshments at the meeting. Typed in a special font and printed on colored paper, the quotations made classy looking labels for the different foods. They brainstormed for other ideas and came up with a funny song from the novel’s time period and a game that families of that era used to play.

Excitement was high on the evening of that first Homeschool Mother-Daughter Book Club meeting. Even the few who hadn’t quite finished the book liked getting together, talking about the characters, and comparing favorite parts of the book. Of course, the snacks were a hit too. The meeting ended with another mother-daughter team claiming hostess duty for the next event.

If you’d like to start your own Homeschool Mother-Daughter Book Club, here’s a list of suggested titles to get you started.

Suggested Titles by Grade Level

Grades 2–3

Find adventure as Carolina Putnam’s family moves by covered wagon to the plains of Nebraska.

Jenny, an orphan, learns to trust God and people who love her.

When Danae’s family goes on furlough, she has a difficult time “finding roses” in America.

Rigel, the smallest bee in the hive, works to be dependable.

Grades 4–6

Captured by a Cheyenne raiding party, Carrie learns to depend on God.

Feather is terrified when vicious raiders kidnap her and take her far from her village.

A biography of Mary Slessor a missionary to Africa

Connie better understands her family as she solves the mystery of the golden cowrie shell.

Elizabeth Ann’s life is turned upside-down when she goes for an extended visit to the Putneys.

Grades 7–12

Miss Ellanor Fitzhugh finds herself in the middle of a dangerous political game as she enters society.

As a wilderness tour guide, Jacy can get along with almost anyone until she meets two new hikers.

An orphaned Jewish teenager, Mala meets Jesus of Nazareth, who changes her life.

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Written by Gail Y.

Write a Novel in a Month?!

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Looking to inspire those budding novelists under your tutelage?

November is the perfect opportunity to get them to stretch those creative muscles. By introducing them to National Novel Writing Month, you just might see even timid and procrastinating writers start baby-stepping their way to literary greatness.

 

While the average novel is around 100,000 words, National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo as it is called) cuts that requirement in half, asking writers to produce a 50,000-word short novel in thirty days. By producing a shorter work, your writers are being trained to make it “meatier”—with no droning on about superfluous details or patience-testing fillers. This project calls for cutting to the chase, keeping things moving, and only letting in the important stuff. NaNoWriMo is all about getting a story on paper and worrying about fine-tuning it later.

Writers are also forced to map their strategy and organize their time. We all have other stuff to do, especially during the holiday season. Not many of us would choose to skip Thanksgiving dinner to write. So your writers will have to divide the number of words they need by the number of days they will actually be writing throughout November. A realistic goal would probably be a chapter a week.

Needless to say, having a firm grasp of the basics of fiction writing will go a long way toward your students’ success with this project. A review of plot, characterization, description,and so on before plunging forward will give added direction and confidence. Who knows where the journey will lead, once the first step is taken? NaNoWriMo mini-novel today, best-seller tomorrow.

NaNoWriMo Writing Project Tips

      1. Decide on the required number of words. Your students have other classes and projects, so you may need to make your minimum word count smaller than 50,000.
      2. Choose the start and end dates for the project. You can go with the traditional month of November time frame, or you can have it go shorter or longer if you need to. Whatever you decide, make sure it’s a reasonable period of time to meet your word-count requirements.
      3. Determine the grading criteria. Will you grade based on completion only or will you also check the quality of writing—sentence structure, spelling/grammar, and such? Be sure to let your students know this at the beginning of the project. (NaNoWriMo is typically focused on completing a rough draft.)
      4. Implement weekly (or other periodic) checks. If left alone, some of your students will fall behind in their writing. Help them out by giving occasional due dates and telling them what you will be looking for in those checks.

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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.

Have you ever participated in NaNoWriMo or adapted it for your students? Tell us about your experience in a comment.

10 Tips for Your Homeschool Year

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How is your homeschool day going? Sometimes, you have a plan, are able to start the year following the plan, and everything goes according to that plan. (A miracle, right?) But other years the plan just doesn’t work for whatever reason—sickness, a new baby, family emergencies, new co-op classes, a new curriculum, and so on. In case you’re having one of those years when the original plan just isn’t working, here are a few suggestions for planning the entire school year and tips for when you need to readjust your plan.

 

Tip #1—Set goals for your school year.

While you’re scheduling your school year, encourage your children to set their own goals for their education. What are some things they’ve been particularly curious about or have wanted to know? Look for ways to incorporate those things into the overall academic goals, and your child will feel like an active participant in his or her education.

Tip #2—Get organized; stay organized.

All the books, papers, pens/pencils, and such can start to get out of control. Find a system that works for you and your kids to keep all their school materials organized. It may be a basket or drawer system that keeps all the work for one subject in one place. Or you may have a shelf designated for each child, and only his school stuff goes on that shelf. And those fun but easy-to-lose manipulatives? Try keeping them in manila folders or envelopes organized by month for easy access.

Tip #3—Make balance a priority.

Focus on developing a homeschool routine that is structured enough to accomplish your goals without losing sight of your students’ (and your!) need for occasional changes of scene and pace.

Tip #4—Maintain “administrator” unity in your homeschool decisions.

Dad and Mom need to be in each decision together so that the kids don’t get the idea that they can pit one parent against the other. The “teacher” supports the “principal,” vice versa, and the family as a whole contributes to the overall needs of the family.

Tip #5—Don’t measure the effectiveness of your schedule by other homeschoolers’ schedules.

Focus on tangible measurements of success—such as your children’s ability to apply textbook knowledge to real-life situations—and spend whatever time is necessary to encourage their growth. Do the best you can with the time you have.

Tip #6—Set and stick to regular homework deadlines.

Don’t let the convenience of a more fluid schedule distract you from an integral part of your child’s preparation for college and the workforce.

Tip #7—Organize a “school basket” for younger children to use during school hours.

Each younger child should have his or her own basket but only have access to it during the older children’s work hours. Fill the basket with fun activities, educational toys, interesting picture books, and puzzles that the child can do on his or her own.

Tip #8—Don’t let your curriculum completely determine how and what you teach.

Curriculum is a tool—a wonderful tool—but only you can decide how best to use it for your children. Capitalize on your students’ learning strengths while alternating with other learning styles to help them grow. For example, consider reading tests and homework assignments aloud to aural learners while having them follow along on the printed pages.

Tip #9—Keep detailed academic records.

You’ll need a selection broad enough to show your child’s curve of improvement throughout the school year. Remember, you can always throw out unneeded papers later, but you can’t get them back once they’re gone.

Tip #10—Enjoy homeschooling!

Life is short and you only have so much time with your children. The more prepared you are for the school year, the more time you will have to enjoy it and your children.

What other tips would you add to this list?