BJU Press Blog

Successful Learning

You want your children to succeed in their education. We do too. We offer practical tips for teaching your children math, science, writing, and more! These tips can be applied to any homeschool curriculum. There are also highlights of our new textbooks with examples of how our curriculum trains your children to have success in their learning.

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How to Find the Best 4th Grade Homeschool Curriculum For Your Child 

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Your child is about to enter fourth grade, and you may be a little intimidated about homeschooling next school year. After all, fourth grade becomes more involved and more challenging. Foundational concepts and skills in reading, spelling, writing, and math will be honed during fourth grade. History and science will also broaden the borders of your student’s knowledge.

As a homeschooling parent, you want to give your children the best elementary education so they are ready for the rest of their education. But how do you choose the best fourth grade homeschool curriculum for this important transitional grade? What should you emphasize in your curriculum? Is there a curriculum that will accommodate your fourth grader’s learning style and academic needs? This blog post will help answer your questions and direct you to the best fourth grade homeschool curriculum for your journey. 

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Fun Homeschool Field Trip Ideas

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Homeschooling is awesome for a lot of reasons, but one of my favorite reasons is the complete control that I have over our schedule. If a friend wants to go running with us in the morning, no problem. Homeschooling can wait a couple hours. A beautiful day and we want to go to our local botanical gardens. No problem. We pack a lunch, a few notebooks, and a field guide and head out on a field trip.  There are many homeschool field trips that can be taken. Homeschoolers can learn anywhere! 

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Free Homeschooling–Is It Too Good to Be True?   

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The economist Milton Friedman once said, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” He was not just talking about lunch, but saying more generally that everything has a cost or a trade-off. The same is true when it comes to homeschooling. Many free homeschooling resources exist online that may provide a partial or surface-level “curriculum.” But there are often trade-offs in time, effort, and educational quality.    

Is homeschooling free?  

Homeschooling is not free. Even if you use free homeschool resources you find online, there is a significant added cost to your time. It takes time to put together a curriculum that will meet educational best practices and state requirements. While homeschooling is generally much cheaper than private school, it is not a tax-funded “free” service like public school. Whatever your reasons for choosing homeschooling over public and private school, you are making an investment in your children’s education. Investments, by nature, cost something.  

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Finding the Best 3rd Grade Homeschool Curriculum for Your Child  

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Your curriculum choice in third grade is an important foundational decision for the rest of your homeschooling years. This is the year your child will transition from learning to read to reading to learn. Third graders also transition to more high-level thinking skills, and this may be the year you decide to start standardized testing. You’ll want to find a third grade homeschool curriculum that leads you and your third grader to success!  

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10 of the Best Books on Homeschooling 

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When my parents started homeschooling, there weren’t a lot of books on homeschooling available. Most families were still trying to figure it out. But we’re living in a very different time. Homeschooling is growing in popularity. We don’t have to grope around in the dark, wondering if we are doing it right. We have the privilege of learning from veteran homeschoolers who have written excellent books on homeschooling. These authors have shared wisdom about all kinds of issues that homeschoolers face—teaching multiple children, balancing homeschooling and housekeeping, overcoming discouragement, and more. These authors know our struggles. They understand that homeschooling is hard. These authors have also tasted the reward of homeschooling and know it is sweet. They have written books on homeschooling to help and encourage us in our own homeschool journeys. 

If you are looking to add some books on homeschooling to your home library or are looking for a gift to encourage a homeschool mom, here are 10 of the best  books on homeschooling that I’ve found. I don’t always agree with the author completely, and you may not either. But there are helpful parts to each one of these books that I think make them worth reading. 

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