BJU Press Blog

Jenna

An Activity for Making History Memorable (Printable)

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You never know when a fun little activity might become one of your child’s favorite memories. And what mother wouldn’t be pleased if one of her child’s favorite memories turns out to be about learning something new?

Recently I sat down with Michelle Jarrell, one of our Online Learning teachers, to talk about the file folder games that she developed for one of her classes. As we were talking, I couldn’t help but remember something I did when I was a kid. One day I got into the filing cabinet where my mom kept all the homeschool supplies and pulled out the laminated file folders she used to teach numbers, colors, and shapes. There were labels where the shapes and numbers went, and each piece had Velcro on the back. Now I laugh about the fact that at the time I was more fascinated by hearing the ripping sound than by putting the shapes where they belonged.

Mrs. Jarrell’s file folder games give a visual and hands-on element to heritage studies, which can be a not-so-visual and hands-on subject. A bit like lapbooks, file folder games focus on specific lessons rather than on broad overviews. And, they’re a lot of fun to make and to play.

In her class, Mrs. Jarrell gives her students the option to add four to six dates to the master timeline that she designed. Here’s how you and your child can put together your own master timeline from AD 1000 to 1800.

Master Timeline Activity

Things you will need

  • Three file folders
  • Hook-and-loop fasteners (like Velcro®) or adhesive putty (like Sticky Tack)
  • Tape
  • Glue
  • Master timeline activity (printable)

Directions for timeline

  1. Print out the master timeline activity.
  2. Open all three file folders and line them up, side by side.
  3. Tape the folders together to make a single sheet approximately three feet by one foot.
  4. Cut out the timeline strips and glue them onto the folders, starting with 1000 at the top.
  5. Cut out the date and event tiles.
  6. As a review or as your child encounters new events in the history textbook, have him stick each tile where it belongs on the vertical timeline using tape, adhesive putty, or a hook-and-loop fastener.

3 Benefits of Writing Thank-You Notes

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After every special occasion involving gifts, there’s the inevitable round of thank-you cards. And while you do want to show gratefulness, they probably aren’t something you look forward to writing. After all, who has the time?

But, for your children, writing thank-you notes has a lot of value. They give your children a chance to. . .

(Image use) WP 12/2016

1. Practice Composition Skills

Thank-you cards give your children an opportunity to apply composition skills outside of their studies. If they follow the traditional “thank-you-for-your-gift-I-will-use-it-for . . .” format of thank-you notes, they’ll need to consider what the item is, how it’s typically used and for what, and who they’re writing to. All these considerations involve important writing skills. For instance, they might change their tone if they’re addressing a jovial uncle as opposed to an affectionate grandma.

2. Practice Writing and Grammar Skills

Thank-you notes also give your children an opportunity to practice handwriting and grammar skills. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a thank-you card on college-ruled card stock. Writing cards encourages them to practice writing in a straight line, rather than letting their writing curve up or down. And since they won’t want to ruin the card by making too many mistakes, they’ll need to recall what they’ve learned about grammar and spelling to get it right the first time.

3. Practice Gratitude

But most importantly, thank-you notes are an opportunity to teach your children how to have a spirit of gratitude for the things they’ve been given. It’s a time to pause and appreciate the value of not only the gift but also the relationship with the giver. Even if they may not fully appreciate the gift itself, they can appreciate how much the giver means to them. After all, we as believers may never be able to fully comprehend the sacrifice Christ made for us, but we can love Christ because of the love He has shown us.

So encourage your children to take the time and write handwritten thank-you notes this year! At the very least, you can count them as extra credit later.

A Christmas Blessing for You

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This season is a time for many things. It’s a time for colored lights, sparkling trees, warm drinks, favorite songs, and—hopefully—gently falling snow.

But most importantly, this is the season to rejoice over the greatest blessing of all: Jesus Christ came to live among us. And through His sacrifice we have comfort and joy. Enjoy this Christmas ecard from all of us at BJU Press!

BJU Press eCard for Blog 2016 Christmas

Image by Toa Heftiba

How to Build a Foundation for Independent Learning

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As much as you may love being a part of your child’s daily walk with God and carefully teaching him to seek God, it has always been your goal as a parent to carefully guide him to a place where he will be able to seek God on his own. You won’t always be standing over his shoulder and telling him what decisions he needs to make—as much as you might want to.

One day, your child’s relationship with the Lord will be his own responsibility. Education is no different. Just as you want your children to be capable of making right choices on their own, you want them to be able to learn on their own.

The process of developing a child into an independent learner  is sometimes called “scaffolding.” Often when you see a building under construction, you also see scaffolding around it. The wooden or metal framework supports the workers as they build the structure itself. For example, a bricklayer stands on a scaffold as he works on the exterior walls of a building. Though essential to the construction process, the scaffolding is only temporary.

Scaffolding in education works the same way. The teacher or parent provides support and makes connections to help learners continue making progress independently. Here are a couple of ways you can help your children become independent learners.

scaffolding

Help them make connections between old and new information

Have you ever told a funny story only to get to the end and realize that no one’s laughing? And then you remembered one small but crucial detail that changed everything about the story and made it funny?

One of the most important elements for any lesson is appropriate background information—which can sometimes be that small but crucial missing detail that keeps your children from understanding a new concept—like knowing a particular word’s definition before you can understand a scientific law. If they have all the information but still don’t understand, help them make the connection between what they already know and what they need to learn.

Sometimes, this part of scaffolding is as simple as reminding your children of the necessary information. Other times, it might mean referring back to previous discussions or asking a specific question about the missing information. You could also use graphic organizers, word webs, vocabulary lists, or even a metaphor to help make connections to ideas your children already understand, such as the comparison between your child’s growing faith and his education, or the funny story with the missing detail.

Help them discern how they learn best

Once your children have made the connection they were missing before, look back and see what methods helped them find it. Did a graphic organizer help them understand what a verb does? Or did using a word web help them brainstorm for a writing project? Teach them to look for those methods and apply them the next time they don’t understand a new concept.

Scaffolding isn’t a list of tools to use all the time. It’s a process for reaching the specific goal of making sure your children can learn independently. BJU Press Teacher’s Editions are full of resources that can help you scaffold your children’s learning.

Check out our TEs for science or English for some extra resources that will help your children become independent learners!

Writing and Grammar—Two Halves of One Whole

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For a busy parent, with everything that has to be completed in one homeschool day, teaching writing and grammar is a lot of work. It might seem to make more sense for you to handle these two related subjects as separate classes, or to spend one semester on grammar and the next on writing. So why does BJU Press put them together in the curriculum? Because writing and grammar are two halves of the same whole. Studying grammar helps your child become a better writer, while studying writing helps your child understand grammar. Here are a few reasons why.

Writing and Grammar—Two Halves of One Whole

  • Writing Skills and Grammar Skills

Writing assignments give your child a place to apply the grammar skills he’s just learned. It’s easy for a student to recognize and fix a problem he’s just learned about when looking at a list of sentences that follow a certain formula. The real test of understanding is expecting him to recognize and correct the problem in his own writing. But the reverse is also true—grammar skills improve writing. Writers need a certain level of grammatical understanding in order to be able to communicate effectively. For example, punctuation can change the meaning of a sentence entirely, as in the old joke about the trigger-happy panda that “eats, shoots and leaves.”

  • Analytical and Conceptual

People tend to be either analytical or conceptual. Grammar is an analytical skill, and children who favor logical processes tend to do well with grammar. On the other hand, writing is highly conceptual. There are fewer hard-and-fast rules for writing, and children who tend to be conceptual thinkers are likely to succeed in writing. Studying writing and grammar together gives both kinds of thinkers opportunities to use their strengths and improve their weaknesses.

  • Objective and Subjective

Since  writing is so conceptual, it can also be frustratingly subjective to assess, but this subjectivity leaves room for leniency in grading. When I was teaching writing, I would often ask myself whether lack of sentence variety or overuse of weak verbs really deserved a lower grade even though everything else was well done. But you know your own child’s strengths and weaknesses. If your child enjoys writing but doesn’t excel at spelling or grammar (the objective part), you can choose to value the writing section (the subjective part) of the rubric over the grammar section. If your child does well grammatically but doesn’t write as well, then you can choose to emphasize the grammar section of the rubric. This gives you the flexibility to evaluate your child based on his strengths rather than his weaknesses.

At BJU Press, we teach writing and grammar together all the way from grade 2 through grade 12. Check out our whole line of English-Writing and Grammar textbooks!