BJU Press Blog

Megan

Megan

About Megan

Megan is a writer and a homeschool mom with four daughters—a fifth grader, a third grader, a kindergartner, and a toddler. She enjoys doing activities with her girls and taking advantage of every teachable moment. She and her family enjoy ministering the gospel to spiritually needy children in their area, getting involved in their community, and reading books of all shapes and sizes. Read more posts by Megan.

3 Tips for Transitioning to Year-Round Homeschooling

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switching to year-round homeschooling
A couple of years ago, my husband and I decided to dramatically change our homeschooling routine. We moved from homeschooling using a traditional school year calendar to homeschooling year-round. I wrote about the reasons we chose to move to a year-round schedule in the post “3 Reasons to Homeschool Year Round.”

We have not regretted our choice to homeschool year-round, but the transition was a bit challenging. If you’re considering switching to year-round homeschooling, here are some tips to help you on your way.

Plan Your Calendar

Set Up a Routine

Homeschooling year-round will give you a lot of flexibility with your schedule, but you still need a plan. You still must meet your your required number of days or hours. I do recommend setting up a routine—it will help your child immensely to know what you expect on any given day. Some families choose to homeschool five days a week for a set number of weeks and then take a week or two off. My family has adopted a four-day-a-week schedule, and we try to take the same day off every week.

Plan Time Between School Years

It will also help your family if you plan a multi-week break between school years. I have found that I need time to mentally wrap up our school year, pack away any curriculum I hope to reuse in the future, and give myself a “breather” before starting all over again. I usually plan on a four to five week break between school years. Having that longer break also gives a “freshness” to the new school year that allows me to make changes to old routines more easily.

Communicate Your Homeschool Plan

If you are planning to homeschool year-round, you will want to communicate your plans to any homeschool umbrella organizations that you may be a part of. My family is a part of the Academy of Home Education (AHE), and every year we email AHE a copy of our planned yearly homeschool calendar which we usually create in Excel. Based on our calendar, AHE adjusts our reporting deadlines so that we don’t incur late fees.

Anticipate the Need for Adjustments

Adjust Your Curriculum

You will have to make some adjustments along the way. For example, the BJU Press spelling curriculum is set up for a five-day school week, which did not fit well with our four-day week. In order to avoid the possibility of having to take a spelling test after a three-day break from school, we decided that we needed to do spelling five days a week, even on our “day off.” It was an easy adjustment.

Adjust Your Grade Reporting

We also had to make some adjustments to our grading and reporting. Our quarters are usually 11 to 12 calendar weeks long, which at first glance, doesn’t fit very well with the nine-week grade reporting forms required by our homeschool organization. But this was an easy fix as well—we just ignored the calendar’s weekly divisions and counted every five days as a “week.”

Our family has really been blessed by year-round homeschooling, and I’m sure yours will be as well. I hope that some of these tips will make your transition easier. If you still need help, reach out to one of your local HomeWorks consultants—they are there for you!

How to Use Teacher Editions in Your Homeschool

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using teacher editions

Like many of you, I am in the process of figuring out my homeschool curriculum order for our next school year. I’m trying to decide what Distance Learning subjects and textbook kits we want to order, what textbooks and teacher’s materials we can reuse from older children, and what “extras” we need. But there’s something that’s definitely going in my order—the teacher editions for any subjects that I plan to teach myself.

I don’t buy printed teacher editions for every subject. My children use Distance Learning Online for many of their subjects, so I have access to the digital teacher editions for those courses if I ever need them. But I teach Reading 3 to my second daughter and Focus on Fives to my third daughter. I have found the teacher editions for those courses to be invaluable.

Let me walk you through my Reading 3 Teacher Edition to show you why I love it so much.

Clear Planning

Like all BJU Press teacher editions, Reading 3 includes a Lesson Plan Overview in the front of each volume. The Lesson Plan Overview gives me a bird’s-eye view of the course. I can see how many lessons we’ll spend on any particular selection and what skills we’ll be focusing on. I use this to help me build my homeschool calendar, but I always end up making adjustments. Sometimes I end up combining lessons or skipping lessons altogether (yes, it’s okay to skip lessons!) based on what else is happening in our homeschool.

Individual Lesson Guides in Teacher Editions

Every lesson in Reading 3 has been carefully thought out. When I open my teacher edition to an individual lesson, I have everything that I need to teach effectively.

Objectives

A glance at the top of the page tells me what pages we’re going to cover in the student textbook or worktext. The lesson objectives are clearly stated so I know exactly what my daughter needs to know by the end of the lesson. And I can clearly see what materials I need for the lesson and where I can find them.

Routine

Each lesson has a routine. We start with going over the vocabulary words that my daughter will need to know in order to understand what she’s reading. Each vocabulary word is presented in context so that my daughter will learn how to use context clues to figure out the meaning of unknown words when she comes across them in her own reading.

Reading Focus

Next we move on to our reading focus, which is the literary skill that the lesson is focusing on developing (like recognizing how the setting impacts the story).  Here, the teacher edition provides instructions on how to introduce these skills and questions that I can ask my daughter to make sure that she understands the instruction.

Reading Selections

Then we jump into the selection itself. The teacher edition provides me with reduced student pages, so I can see exactly what my daughter sees in her student textbook. But I get a few extra features. All the vocabulary words for this particular lesson are underlined in the text so that I can make sure my daughter understands them. I also get some additional notes that help me with biblical worldview shaping and text enrichment.

Guiding Questions

The biggest help for me is the questions and answers that the teacher edition provides. These questions, as I wrote in a previous post, help me develop and assess my daughter’s reading comprehension, and they also help me lead my daughter to have a deep appreciation for the selection. I know from experience that I would not be able to come up with questions like these on my own. Do I ask every question? No. Some we skip because of time. Some I end up expanding because of my daughter’s interest. Remember that the teacher edition is just a guide—you don’t have to do everything. You don’t even have to ask each question exactly as written. You are in charge. The teacher edition is just there to provide support.

Phonics Review

By the time you teach Reading 3, your child should have a good foundation of phonics knowledge. But many third graders (mine included) still need additional phonics practice. So every lesson in Reading 3 includes a review of a phonics principle, and most worktext pages assess that same phonics skill. Don’t feel as if you always have to teach that portion of the lesson. If your child breezes through that portion of the worktext page without mistakes, just move on.

Grading Resources

The teacher edition does include reduced student pages of the worktext pages (with answers), but they are very small. A digital copy of the worktext answer key is included on the CD that comes free with the teacher edition and a printed edition is available for separate purchase.

The CD contains a few other grading tools. The most valuable to me is the rubric that helps me assess my daughter’s oral reading.

Other Resources in Teacher Editions

The CD that comes with the teacher edition contains a wealth of other resources such as teaching aids and additional activities. These are particularly helpful for multisensory teaching. Find the ones that are useful for you and your child and ignore the rest.

While we have been focusing on the teacher edition for Reading 3, all BJU Press teacher materials include the same kinds of helpful resources for teaching your children. Some include a resource CD, some offer multiple volumes of teaching material, and some have online resources available. A teacher edition is one of the most valuable tools that you will find in your homeschool toolbox. But don’t feel bound to it. It is designed to help support you, so make it work for you and your homeschool situation.

If you are interested in previewing any of BJU Press’s teacher editions online, just click the Look Inside button at the bottom of the product image.

Treating Cabin Fever with Scriptural Truths

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treating cabin fever
Cabin fever. We’ve all had it—that awful sensation that the walls of our home are about to close in on us or maybe even collapse altogether because of the noise level of our children. Our family experienced it last winter when we received heavy rainfall for nine days in a row.  You may even be experiencing it now because of the weather, prolonged sickness, or other challenges.

Unfortunately, cabin fever often brings out the worst in us and our kids. We become impatient. We complain, act with selfishness, and stir up strife. It gets pretty ugly.

How can we cope with cabin fever?

There’s a lot of practical things we as moms can do. We can hop on Pinterest and collect ideas for all kinds of indoor crafts and games, or we can search online for local indoor events. We can fill the time with read-alouds, technology, and enrichment activities. We’re homeschoolers—we’re good at that kind of thing.

But simply filling the time doesn’t fix our problem. Because at its core, our problem is not due to our circumstances. The problem is not the nine consecutive days of heavy rainfall. The problem is the discontentment festering in our hearts and in the hearts of our children. And only meditation on the truths of God’s Word will truly help us. Here are a couple of scriptural truths to remember.

1. God is in charge of the weather.

Psalm 135:6 states, “Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places.” Dr. Layton Talbert, in his book Not by Chance: Learning to Trust a Sovereign God, writes:

In all these various spheres, the elements of earth are the tools of providence. He controls the clouds, the lightning, and the wind for His ends (Psalm 135:7)—fire and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds all fulfill His word (Psalm 148:8) and respond to His commands (Psalm 147:15-18). Do you suppose that has any practical relevance for our attitude toward the weather? (p. 11)

2. God sends periods of affliction for our benefit.

A couple of months ago, my family was housebound for almost two weeks because of a relentless stomach virus. It was miserable. But it was also a time of unexpected blessing because during those long days, I was very aware of God’s grace to me personally.

Psalm 119:71 states, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.”

God often sends periods of prolonged sickness or other difficulties into our lives in order to teach us more about Himself. Rehearse those lessons to yourself and to your children. They will surely brighten your outlook!

A Mom’s Experience with Focus on Fives

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focus on fives
I have a confession—I never wanted to homeschool a kindergartner. I was afraid to. My training didn’t include early childhood education. I didn’t know how to teach someone to read. And I didn’t think that I was a good enough to teach my child all the foundational skills that she would need to succeed in her education. But the Lord made it abundantly clear that I was to be my daughter’s kindergarten teacher. I wrestled with the Lord about it, and He reminded me of the promise of I Thessalonians 5:24, “Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it.” The Lord did equip me for the task of homeschooling my daughter, and the main means that He used was the Focus on Fives curriculum from BJU Press.

An Introduction to the Focus on Fives Curriculum

The Focus on Fives curriculum replaces BJU Press’s former kindergarten curriculum, K5 Beginnings, and it is a major upgrade. The pedagogy—or teaching methods—and the scope and sequence are very similar to K5 Beginnings, but the format is streamlined and the content, including the artwork, has been updated.

When you order the Focus on Fives textbook kit, be ready for a lot of stuff. You receive 6 teacher editions—which initially looks very overwhelming, but it’s actually wonderful because everything you need as a teacher is in one place. Your child receives 2 workbooks—a general workbook and a phonics workbook—as well as 34 full-color reading books. You’ll also get the K5 Phonics and Review Cards, the Write Now! workbook, the Phonics charts, and the teaching visuals packet.

BJU Press is releasing the Focus on Fives video course for the 2020–21 school year. Mrs. Becky Rulapaugh teaches this course. She currently teaches the K5 Math video course that my daughter loves. She’s very good at keeping my daughter engaged.

Lesson Features of Focus on Fives

Heritage Studies and Science

Every Focus on Fives lesson starts off with a heritage studies or science connection. For example, the program starts off with a unit about community helpers. We learned about police officers, firefighters and fire safety, postal workers, doctors, and dentists. The program introduces the topics with a listening story or a composition activity to encourage critical thinking skills. Some lessons also include simple activities, like demonstrating how brushing helps your teeth, to enhance comprehension.

Phonics Foundations

At the heart of every lesson is language arts instruction. BJU Press teaches children to read using a combination of a phonics-based word-family approach along with sight words. The word-family approach ensures that every new sound your child learns can be easily “hooked onto” previous knowledge, and the use of high-frequency sight words helps your child read meaningful text even before you’ve introduced all the sounds.

Language Arts

In addition to phonics instruction, the language arts portion of the lesson covers basic English topics like sentence punctuation, capitalization, the use of plurals and other concepts necessary for reading comprehension. Some lessons will also use phonics characters to help your child identify syllabic patterns to aid them in reading unfamiliar words. Finally, all lessons include handwriting instruction and practice.

Enrichment Activities

Every lesson also includes a list of enrichment activities that go along with the lesson’s topic. The teacher edition includes suggested read-alouds, games, crafts, special snacks, and more. I don’t usually have time to do all the suggested activities, but I do like to pick and choose as time allows.

Reading Books

Although we practice reading every day with short phonics stories, the highlight of our week is our reading book lesson. On those days, we unveil our “big book” of the week. These 8-page, 4-color books reinforce everything that we have learned during the previous weeks and give us good opportunities to develop comprehension and critical thinking skills.

What I love about Focus on Fives

The Focus on Fives teacher editions, in my estimation, are invaluable because they have given me the confidence to teach my daughter. Everything is laid out for me in one place, so I know exactly what I need to do each day. And even though the lessons are not scripted, the teacher edition gives me all the help I need. It’s kind of like having a relative with medical training come with you to a doctor’s appointment—that relative might not be the one in charge, but his or her expert presence certainly makes you feel more confident.

I also love how the curriculum is very flexible. It’s easy to figure out what is necessary to cover in every lesson and what is optional. If I only cover the essentials, we can get through a lesson in about 45 minutes. However, I try to include 1 or 2 of the optional activities every lesson, so usually it takes about an hour a day. And it works fine with my 4-day-a-week schedule even though it’s set up for a more traditional 5-day-a-week schedule.

But Does it Work?

I have really enjoyed seeing my daughter thrive with this curriculum. She gets excited every time I introduce a new sound or a new word family—she loves dreaming up sentences for the new words she learns. She reads with confidence, and she reads with joy.  And I have confidence that she’s going to do great as she continues in her journey.

To learn more about the Focus on Fives materials, check out the subject kit on the BJU Press Homeschool website!

Tips for Restarting Your Homeschool Routine

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restarting your homeschool routine
Do you really enjoy starting back into the homeschool routine in January?

I must confess—I don’t. Compared with the excitement of the holiday season, our normal homeschool routine seems . . . well, boring. By January, the novelty of new curriculum has worn off, and since our next long break seems eons away, it’s hard to be motivated to do schoolwork.

But are there things we can do to help make that January start date much easier on ourselves and our children? Here are a few ideas.

Consider a slow start to your homeschool routine.

Jamie Erickson, in her book Homeschool Bravely, was the one who first introduced me to the idea of starting out a new school year slowly. She writes:

Baptism by fire is a sure way to make anyone burn pretty hot. Launching the year at full-throttle on Day 1 will leave your entire family overwhelmed, especially your strong-willed child. Soft-opening your year can be the grace he needs to homeschool well. (p. 68)

This wisdom doesn’t just apply to the opening of a new school year—it can also apply to the return to homeschooling after a break of any length. Go easy on yourself and your kids. You don’t have to do an entire homeschool day on your first day back. This is homeschooling, after all.

Plan review lessons.

Sometimes when we restart school after a break, my kids have trouble remembering what we were working on before the break. And frankly, so do I! So I’ve concluded that it’s a good idea to plan some review time for our first day—it helps get us well prepared for future lessons.

Try adding something new to your homeschool routine.

The end of a calendar year brings a natural opportunity for reflection and evaluation. So ask yourself, “How’s homeschooling going? Is there something that isn’t working or isn’t going as well as I had hoped? Is my child ready for a new challenge?” January is a great time to try something new, and even small changes in your homeschool routine can rekindle excitement for learning. Below are a few ideas of things to try, but the possibilities really are endless.

  • Work toward a family fitness goal
  • Learn a new skill (sewing, knitting, wood carving, cake decorating, coding, etc.)
  • Form (or join) a book club or writing group
  • Redecorate or rearrange your schoolroom
  • Choose a family service project
  • Put together a family reading list

Restock supplies.

Don’t underestimate the positive power of new school supplies. Before you restart your homeschool, take time to purge the broken crayons, pencils without erasers, and dried out glue sticks, and take your kids shopping for new supplies. Fresh supplies will help you have a fresh start for the year.

Homeschooling is not always easy—especially the first week or so after a holiday break. But it is most definitely worth persevering in. I hope that one or more of these tips will help your family transition well into your homeschool routine in January.