BJU Press Blog

Jenna

Jenna

About Jenna

Jenna, lead copywriter at BJU Press, holds a BA in creative writing and an MA in English. Though her homeschooling experience was somewhat unstructured, she appreciates the flexibility of homeschooling since it allowed her to spend most of her time reading. Now Jenna enjoys reading and writing fiction in her spare time. Read more posts by Jenna.

Tips and Tricks for a Successful Homeschool

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tips and tricks for successful homeschooling
One of the most common questions homeschool families have is, how do you stay organized? Homeschooling involves so much, and you can’t store all of it in a bin at the end of the day. Finding a method of staying organized can be key in reducing stresses you don’t need. But figuring out how to get yourself organized can be a lot like choosing a curriculum and homeschooling style. What works for one family may not work for you. We’d like to offer both experienced and new homeschool families a collection of tips, tricks, and techniques to help you be successful and stay organized in your homeschool.

Tips and Tricks for Your Homeschool Room

If you have the room to spare for a dedicated homeschool room, organization can be a lot easier. Your curriculum and supplies always have a room to go to.

  • Fill it with shelves. There’s no such thing as too much shelf space.
  • Always return supplies to the room. While you and your children should be able to take your work elsewhere if you need to, it will be better for your sanity if you make the expectation that all curriculum and supplies that leave the room return to it. Some parents put baskets out in common areas where items collect, and each basket belongs to a different room. At the end of the day, the baskets return to the rooms they belong to. The next morning, you and your children unpack them and return the baskets to the common areas. As they say, “a place for everything and everything in its place.”
  • Give your children separate workspaces. If they habitually distract each other, help them to minimize their distractions. You can separating their workspaces, give them desks at different walls, or by put screens or barriers between them.

Tips and Tricks for Workstations

If you have the space and prefer your children to spread out to do their work, workstations might be a good alternative. Their workstations are their desk area where they always do their work. The workstation can be in their bedrooms, a corner in the living room, an office space, or any open space where a desk will fit.

  • Make sure each child’s station is equipped with the appropriate supplies and has space for all curriculum, binders, notebooks, and devices.
  • Set up a central area. This area serves as both a resupply station and a place where they can find you if they need help.
  • Watch out for increases and decreases in productivity with workstations. It may seem counterintuitive, but at times, children can be more focused and productive when they’re working around others. Isolation isn’t always good for a child’s productivity. Studies in psychology explore social facilitation, which is the phenomenon of a person being more productive in the presence of others.

Tips and Tricks for Wherever the Books Fall

Many homeschool families find that, either because of the space available or just because of personal preference, it works best to just homeschool wherever the books happen to fall. They may be at your dining room or kitchen table, the coffee table, or in all separate directions. And the location can even change from day-to-day.

  • Mobile storage units are your friend. If your homeschool space changes every other day, setting up a storage unit that you can roll around will help you stay organized. A rolling book cart can transport all your curriculum, while a rolling set of storage drawers can store supplies.
  • Set up a central area for resource storage. Even if your children prefer to go their own way, your books and supplies still need a home when they’re not in use. This home could be some bookshelves in the living room or a repurposed hutch in the dining room.

Tips and Tricks for the Books

One of the biggest parts of your homeschool is your curriculum—your textbooks and resources. How can you make your day-to-day with them a bit easier?

  • Label the spines of spiral-bound books. If you use printed teacher editions or resources that use a spiral binding, your life will be much easier if you can aesthetically “label” their bindings. We’ve used simple luggage tags for office copies, but you can also use colored ribbons, keychains, or even paint to make your teacher editions and spiral notebooks stand out on your shelves. If you associate colors with subjects—like green for science, red for math, purple for English, etc.—it’ll be much easier to know which book is which without taking it off the shelf to see the cover.
  • Pull out activity pages and worktext pages yourself. BJU Press activity books and worktexts in Grades 3 and under aren’t designed to be used with the pages still in the books. They use a hinge binding so the pages can be easily removed from the book. Children who are still mastering handwriting skills need to write on flat surfaces rather than on books with spines that cause part of the page to curve. Also, if you take out the pages you need instead of giving the books to your children to use, the remaining pages will stay together much better.

Tips and Tricks for Keeping Resources

Often it is wise to keep as much as possible in your homeschool journey. Whether you’re saving for memories or preparing for another child, those resources can be invaluable. But sometimes the space just won’t allow you to keep an abundance of resources. How do you decide what to keep and what to discard?

  • Check for updates. If the resources you’re using this year are about to be updated, it’s possible that the worktexts and other consumable materials may not be available when you’re ready to use them again. If you reach out to the BJU Press Homeschool Facebook page, we’re always willing to let you know what updates are coming and what that may mean for the resources you currently have.
  • Build a homeschool portfolio. Some states require you to create a homeschool portfolio, but a portfolio is also a convenient and simple way to store homeschool memories. And you can do it throughout the year so it’s not a big project at the end of the year. Most portfolios are either in a three-ring binder or an accordion folder. For state use, your portfolio should include standardized test scores, sample assignments (graded) from each subject, graded tests, graded essays and their associated rubrics, and project pages, notes, and their associated rubrics.

No matter what happens during your homeschool journey, one thing that you should always remember is that the cleanliness of your home has nothing to do with your success as a homeschool parent. Some days you’ll need to prioritize learning over making sure your toddler managed to put all her toys away. And some days you’ll just need to be a parent instead of a teacher. You’re still an amazing parent—even if no one has swept the floor and toddler toys are on almost every visible surface—because you’re homeschooling.

21st Century Skills and 21st Century Homeschooling (Part 3)

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creating a 21st century homeschooling experience
The Actual 21st Century Homeschooling Part

Homeschool families have known for years that the traditional model for teaching children used in most public schools—reading, lecture, homework, repeat—simply doesn’t work for all children. This model produces students who are good at following directions and taking tests, but not at thinking for themselves. That’s why educators push teaching 21st century skills—the learning skills, the literacy skills, and the life skills. These skills, practically applied to the teaching process, produce a very different model for learning. It’s more than a departure from reading, lecture, and homework. It’s a restructuring of the entire system to make teaching these skills possible. And in your homeschool, you have every advantage in producing a learning environment that supports teaching any skill you want. In fact, you’re likely already well on your way to 21st century homeschooling.

Schools are often locked into one structure or system by the expectations they have to meet. You can forget those expectations and focus on teaching your children how to be better servants. You’re not chasing after grades or test results. You’re preparing your children for the rest of their lives in the 21st century. So how do you do that?

By giving them opportunities to practice the skills.

Practicing and Applying the Learning Skills

The learning skills are the skills that are most strongly supported by your homeschool curriculum. With that support, they’ll often be the easiest to practice. But just because plenty of opportunities to practice a skill exist doesn’t mean the skill itself is easy. Some things may come naturally, but others will take time and effort. Your children need to use the opportunities they have to develop the skills appropriately. Does that mean you have to make sure your children are doing every activity you come across? Does it mean requiring them to answer every essay question?

No, but it is important to make sure that your children do as well as they can on the activities they do work on. The process of developing the learning skills and encouraging good learners is just as much about developing perseverance, determination, and confidence as it is about the work itself.

Practicing and Applying the Literacy Skills

Because of the expense and unease often connected with using skills related to technology, you may hesitate to offer your children opportunities to use them. As you prepare your children for using and applying these skills, focus on preparing them to be wise about technology. They should know the dangers of using technology as well as the benefits of using technology properly. Most importantly, your children need to see you demonstrating in your own life the same wisdom and expectations with technology that you set up for them.

When you do give your kids opportunities to use technology skills, be present, be available, and start small. I remember in college, my freshman English classes required us to format our papers in specific ways. It wasn’t until I was teaching the same course several years later that I realized it wasn’t about making sure papers were pretty and legible. This requirement gave students a reason and an opportunity to learn about their word processors so they could match formatting requirements in future classes. It was a small start, but it helped.

Practicing and Applying the Life Skills

The life skills are so named because they come from life. These skills teach children how to be successful in their own lives. You can help your children practice and apply these skills by involving them in your life. Teaching life skills includes showing your children how to cook, clean, and do their taxes, but it also lets them see how you make decisions and interact with other people. As your children grow and learn, you can involve them more and more in your day-to-day life and work. Eventually, there will come a point when they will be able to take responsibility for their education and will be ready to make choices that will impact their futures. If they have been living your life with you, they will likely be more prepared to make wise and fruitful decisions for themselves.

With these 21st century skills, homeschooling families are often already ahead. There’s no place like home for teaching your children and preparing them to serve Christ, their families, their communities, and their employers.

Teaching Tragedies: Lessons from 9/11

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9-11 memorial and teaching tragedies
Next year, September 11, 2021, will mark the 20-year anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the 2,977 people who lost their lives on that day and on the days following. As time passes, the pain and fear of those days have dulled, and many young adults have no knowledge of the attacks outside of their history textbooks and the stories their parents have shared. Today we face new fears and tragedies that the whole world shares in. How can we possibly approach teaching tragedies and equipping our children to handle them? How can we even truly express the tragedy and horror of what happened on September 11, 2001?

Your heritage studies materials will be helpful in covering and introducing the events, and even helping your children to develop biblical perspectives on tragic events. If you would like to go deeper in discussions about tragedies, here are some themes that you can use to guide your children’s thinking and your discussion.

Love Others.

In the midst of a national or worldwide tragedy, people will be hurting. People will be afraid. And many will be angry. It’s even harder to accept what is happening when we don’t know all the facts that led to the tragedy or who is responsible. For most people, it’s often easier to just react to the things that are happening, but we don’t always know what other events our reactions may lead to. As Christians, we are called to love our neighbors. In order to love appropriately, we need to be patient and honest with others and with ourselves. Patient in dealing with those who are afraid and need assurance, and honest about what’s happening so those who are hurting or angry can respond and grieve appropriately.

God Is in Control.

During a tragedy, the thing that drives fear most is the uncertainty. What will happen next? After 9/11, our fears were centered on war. What kind of retaliation would occur? How many more lives would be lost? How would we rebuild and recover? Job must have felt much of the same fear and uncertainty after losing everything. But no matter the circumstances we face today, tomorrow, or 20 years from now, those who have put their faith in Christ can always take comfort in knowing that God is in control. Nothing that will happen or can happen is against His plan (Isaiah 14:24).

God Brings Good out of the Evil That People Do.

Because God is always in control, we can rest assured that any tragedy will glorify Him, even if we can’t see how in our lifetime. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). The events of 9/11 helped many lost and broken souls to realize their desperate need for salvation. One pilot’s testimony also brings us a beautiful picture of the sacrifice and redemption in Christ’s death on the cross. In addition to the souls brought to Him, the loss and tragedy of those days also brought the people of the United States closer to each other for a time, and countless other nations showed Americans support and compassion in a time of overwhelming grief and fear.

These Are Times to Pray.

We should, of course, be teaching our children that they should “pray without ceasing,” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) but times of tragedy are special times to lift up others in prayer. Not just the families of those who have lost their lives or are suffering, but for many others as well. For leaders to make good and wise decisions. For first responders who risk their lives for the safety of others. And for military personnel, who may be called in for additional support, to give an appropriate response.

Resources for Teaching about 9/11

21st Century Skills and 21st Century Homeschooling (Part 2)

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21st century skills and homeschooling
What do your children need to be able to do in order for them to be prepared for their future jobs? In a previous post, we explored some of the 21st century skills that educators have identified as key for students’ success and that we believe will help students be effective servants of Christ, their families, their communities, and their employers.

21st Century Skills: The Literacy Skills

These three skills—information literacy, media literacy, and technology literacy—have to do with a person’s ability to find and process information.

Information Literacy

Information literacy is the ability to process information in many different formats. Being able to read informational texts is part of this skill, but there is more to it. If your kids use textbooks, they’re already using informational texts all the time. But they should also be able to use visual analysis, or the process of reading graphs, charts, and other visual forms of data for information. For example, students should be able to understand commonalities from a Venn diagram or see sequences in a timeline.

Media Literacy

Media literacy is the ability to find different kinds of information and knowing how to use those sources effectively. In the information age, we’re surrounded by information all the time, but it’s not always accurate. We often hear facts or details second or third hand and out of context. Children need to learn how to find reliable sources for their information.  But given the constantly changing nature of information today, reliable and unreliable sources come and go. Wikipedia was once universally considered an unreliable source, but today, most people will admit that it’s usually reliable. To be able to keep up, children will need to learn principles for determining reliable sources. For example, does the source include citations for where information came from? Does it address both sides of an issue?

Technology Literacy

Technology literacy is perhaps the skill most closely related to the 21st century. This type of literacy is the ability to use the available technologies. New technologies are just resources, but they can be incredibly powerful ones for those that know how to use them. The best way to learn about technology is to use it. That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to enroll your children in a computer programming course. You can simply encourage their curiosity and give them time with the technology. How many dozens of timesaving features are buried in the average word processor that we don’t know about simply because we haven’t explored it?

21st Century Skills: Life Skills

The life skills—flexibility, leadership, initiative, productivity, and social skills—often have more to do with a person’s character than with his or her learning or ability. Some of these skills are the natural outflow of some of the learning skills, and all of these skills require active modeling in real life.

Flexibility

Flexibility is the ability to adapt to changing circumstances with grace and understanding. It has as much to do with how we respond to change as it does with our willingness to change. Flexibility has a lot in common with collaboration. As children work with other people, they need to learn how to adjust their plans and their approach to meet others’ needs. If they learn best while listening to music, and they have a roommate who can’t concentrate with music, then they can be flexible by listening on headphones or going to another room to study. The process of working with people and listening and understanding their needs is the best way to build a flexible character.

Leadership

Leadership, at its core, is simply the ability to motivate others to work together. Children can practice it by demonstrating confidence in their abilities and the abilities of others so that they can accomplish a goal together. This skill also relies on both collaboration and communication, because to learn leadership, children must learn to trust in the abilities of others so they can be confident about those abilities, and they must be able to communicate their own skills and abilities.

Initiative

Initiative is the willingness to fix a problem without an immediate reason to do so. It’s when your children do their chores without you telling them to, or when they pick up trash on the sidewalk simply because it’s a problem they could fix. Students need to learn to fix problems if they can, or to point them out if nobody has noticed them. Initiative is less a skill to be practiced and more a life philosophy that you can instill in your children.

Productivity

Productivity, also called efficiency, is the ability to apply time management skills in order to accomplish more. It requires self-awareness as much as it requires knowing how to plan and effectively manage your time. For example, if you know you never look at or use planners, why would you use up time to put a whole lesson plan in a planner? Similarly, your children need to know how they work and learn best so they can implement a time management plan that works for them.

Social Skills

Social skills are simply the ability to be likeable—to present yourself well and to have awareness of what is or isn’t appropriate in a given setting. These skills also relate closely to communication skills. It’s much easier for kids to be likeable when they speak clearly and understandably. You don’t need to teach your children how to small talk. But they do need to learn how to listen and engage in a conversation that they may not have any initial interest in. They also need to learn how to have an appropriate conversation. Anyone who’s spent a few minutes with children knows they have few boundaries. They’ll share anything and ask anything. Awareness of what’s appropriate for conversation isn’t innate, nor is it universal.

Are these 21st century skills just another checklist to work through to ensure that you’re giving your children the best possible education? No. These skills are actually the foundations of a different way of looking at school. You may have noticed that most of these skills aren’t skills kids are going to learn from what we know as a traditional school experience—reading, lecture, homework, and repeat. But that is a conversation for a future post.

21st Century Skills for 21st Century Homeschooling (Part 1)

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21st century skills in your homeschool

Do you know what one of the most wonderful things about homeschooling is? You have the freedom to be flexible and mobile and do whatever you need to do to ensure that your children will be equipped for their future lives. If you aren’t part of an online academy or a school with strict regulations, then you are free to buy curriculum directly from the curriculum creators. Which means, once those resources are in your home, you get to use them however you like. You can focus on the lessons and skills that you believe will be the most beneficial for your children’s future. You can choose resources that will help them become more effective servants of Christ, their family, their community, and their employer.

So what do you need to teach your kids to be more effective servants in the 21st century? Educators have compiled a list of skills that are vital for students to be successful in their future jobs. Realistically, these 21st century skills (as they are often called) have always been important for preparing students for their lives. However, as people create, innovate, and streamline technology, fewer jobs require mindless drones who just follow instructions. To be effective employees, people will need to be able to create and innovate. The 21st century skills are the skills that most effectively equip students for their future jobs.

When the BJU Press writing teams look at incorporating 21st century skills into our textbooks, they divide them into three categories: the learning skills, the literacy skills, and the life skills. In this post we’ll take a look at the first category of skills.

21st Century Skills: The Learning Skills

These skills are ones that we are always learning and developing, and they’re the ones we’re most familiar with.

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is using reasoning skills to determine the implications of information. It’s the crucial step between learning facts and understanding why that information is important. For example, students can learn that Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated on June 28, 1914. But then the students should consider how his assassination led to World War I. In our materials, we rely on effective questioning to develop critical thinking. Children need to go beyond just remembering, understanding, and applying information. They also need to be able to analyze and evaluate it, and the process of analysis and evaluation requires them to use their critical-thinking skills.

Creativity

Creativity as a learning skill does not refer to artistry but, rather, creative thinking. Creative thinking is the ability to use what you know in a new situation to solve a problem or to answer a question that you don’t know. We have a tendency to think that creative thinking is only an innate ability, not a skill to be practiced and taught. But kids learn to be creative thinkers by attempting to solve problems without being told how to solve them.

This ability requires confidence and a certain disregard for failure. If you’re going to try proposing new solutions to problems, you have to accept that your solution might not work. And that’s okay. You just try again until something works. Asking your children to define words they haven’t seen or heard before is asking them to think creatively. They’ll need to be able to use what they know about words and word roots, combine it with what they know from the word’s context, and then create a definition in their own words.

Collaboration

Collaboration is the skill of working with other people and learning how to compromise for everyone’s benefit. If you have more than one child, you’re probably already working on developing their collaboration skills. It’s a fact of life for siblings. However, they’ll need to be able to collaborate on a professional level as well as a personal one. Group projects are especially helpful to teach students how to listen to others, share ideas, and encourage each other to be useful, contributing members of a team. Children who work and learn together have a unique advantage over those who always work and learn alone. They’re able to recognize how people can work differently but still be effective. And they’re also able to adjust their own processes to accommodate those who work differently.

Communication

Communication is the ability to clearly and conscientiously express what you need or expect from others. It is not just the ability to speak and talk to others. Many people have the ability to speak but have little skill in expressing their thoughts clearly or conscientiously. Students learn this skill best through practice as well as example. English courses teach grammar and writing skills that ensure children can use the words they need in the way those words should be used, and critical-thinking questions help them practice putting their thoughts and ideas into words. But communication is a skill that also needs to be reinforced daily. You can demonstrate it by showing your children how the things they say can be misunderstood and then helping them to clarify. You can also demonstrate by clarifying your own communication.

These learning skills are just the beginning, but they play a role in the development of some of the other 21st century skills. In a future blog post, we’ll discuss the remaining two categories of 21st century skills: literacy skill and life skills.