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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No Ordinary Night, September 12, 2001

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September 12 New York Skyline
On September 11, 2001, I woke up late on a Tuesday morning to find my mother in the living room, watching the news and crying. When we look back on a life-changing event, we can usually remember exactly where we were or what we were doing when we heard about it, but we don’t always remember much about the days that followed. As a ten-year-old, all I understood that day was that a plane had crashed in New York City. For many of us, fear and war scatter across our memories for the days that followed 9-11, and those memories are difficult to explain.

To help your children understand, share this pantoum by Morgan Reid Persun.

No Ordinary Night, September 12, 2001

No ordinary night, that, not with those fires smoldering;
the whole civilized world held out candles for us to see by.
And dawn’s early light found us standing, flags at half-mast,
the heavy artillery of the American spirit gathering. The silence ominous.

The whole civilized world held out candles for us to see by
as we looked through our ruined towers for a miracle,
the heavy artillery of the American spirit gathering. The silence ominous:
America had not gone down with the towers; she was revealed behind them.

As we looked through our ruined towers for a miracle,
the enemy believed we would crumble more easily within, but
America had not gone down with the towers; she was revealed behind them.
We looked up, one people, we the people, with terrible force.

The enemy believed we would crumble more easily within, but
we, sure that right would right itself, steeled to the cause.
We looked up, one people, we the people, with terrible force,
with liberty and justice for all. With justice for all.

And dawn’s early light found us standing, flags at half-mast,
we, sure that right would right itself, steeled to the cause:
With liberty and justice for all. With justice for all.
No ordinary night, that, not with those fires smoldering.

Your Commitment to Homeschooling

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making a commitment to homeschooling
The start of a new homeschool year is a lot like New Year’s Day. As you’re setting your goals for the upcoming homeschool year, do you want them to be like those New Year’s resolutions that only last for a week or two? Of course not! Most of those New Year’s resolutions we make are goals we know we probably should set, but have very little reason to follow through on—like exercising regularly or eating right. We can’t commit to those goals because we don’t always believe in why we’re doing them. In contrast, your homeschool goals ought to be rooted in your commitment to homeschooling. If you can explain why you’re homeschooling, then sticking to the goals you set this year will become much easier.

Call a Family Meeting

Sit the whole family down to document the reasons you’ve decided to homeschool. If your children are old enough to contribute, then they should have the opportunity to share their opinions and add their own reasons. Make a list of reasons that will spell out your commitment to homeschooling. You might find several reasons for not participating in the school system, but negatives are hard to act on. If your reason is based on a negative, try to state it in a positive form. For example, if you feel that the school environment is a bad influence on your children, then your reason for homeschooling is to give them good role models or to help them become spiritually mature.

Look over your list. Mark out overlapping reasons. Maybe cross out a few that aren’t as important as the others. Condense it to five or fewer reasons that you really believe in.

Put Your Commitment on Display

In order to keep your commitment to homeschooling in front of your eyes, put the list of reasons on display where you’ll see them a lot. You can put them under a magnet on your refrigerator. Maybe you can print them out on nice paper in a curly font and have them matted and framed to hang in that one bare spot on the wall in your living room. Or, more fun, you can turn them into an art project for each child to hang in his or her room.

Set Your Goals

Once you’ve laid out your commitment to homeschooling clearly, the goals will be easier to choose and easier to focus on. Goals that flow naturally from your reasons for homeschooling will make the most sense to work toward.

Homeschooling takes a lot of hard work and planning. Even though you know you’re not going to quit or give up on it, you can easily be tempted to cut corners or not give each day your best. Your commitment to homeschooling keeps you on track as you’re weathering hard days as well as when you’re enjoying times of smooth sailing.

Reasons to Take a Spontaneous Field Trip

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cowpens field trip
One day near the end of last summer, I sat looking at my Reading 3 Teacher Edition in preparation for the coming school year. One story near the beginning of the book caught my attention—”Alex the Drummer Boy.” It’s a historical fiction piece set in Cowpens, South Carolina, during the Revolutionary War. As I looked more closely at the piece, an idea began to take shape in my mind—we should take a field trip to Cowpens.

Was I crazy? The site was a little over an hour away, and my window of opportunity was small since we would be reading the selection in a couple of weeks. But it was a perfect educational opportunity. A visit to the historical site would not only provide valuable background information for reading the story, it would also build excitement for the upcoming lessons.

We made the trip a few days later, and we were so glad we did. You can read more about our experience in the post Learning Activities That Come Alive.

As a homeschooler, I love having the flexibility to enhance my curriculum with in-the-moment learning experiences like spontaneous field trips. If I had been teaching in a classroom, that trip to Cowpens probably wouldn’t have happened. But since I was a homeschool mom, I could take advantage of the opportunity the curriculum presented me.

Field trips are never easy, even when they are somewhat unplanned. But here are a couple reasons why they’re worth the effort.

A Field Trip Fuels Interest in Learning

There’s nothing like hands-on experiences to whet a child’s appetite for learning. When we returned home from Cowpens, my daughter suddenly couldn’t get enough of Revolutionary War history. She checked out historical fiction and nonfiction books at the library. I saw her play-acting battles and trying to fashion her own Revolutionary War uniforms. She was excited and ready to learn.

A Field Trip Boosts Comprehension

Sometimes field trips can also help students better comprehend what they’re learning. This week, my second-grade daughter and I are going to read a story in reading about non-furry pets. She has never seen a hermit crab, so before we read it, I’m planning to take her on a quick trip to a local pet store to observe a real one in action. Seeing one up-close will help her better understand the point of the story.

Taking spontaneous field trips has become a way for me to incorporate real-life learning into our homeschool, and it has been a fun way for our family to bond while learning. Have you ever taken a spur-of-the-moment field trip? Tell us about it in a comment!

Steve Case Puts Distance Learning in Context

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Steve Case organizing Distance Learning courses
In our behind-the-scenes looks at BJU Press textbooks and Distance Learning videos, we’ve had a lot of fun talking to artists about their art. But there’s another kind of art that goes into creating a successful video course. As a homeschool parent, you know better than most that organization is an art in and of itself. In the midst of homeschooling, do you really have time to stop and think about how each course is set up? We talked with Steve Case, our instructional design supervisor, to find out about the art of organizing Distance Learning courses.

Both of Steve’s parents were teachers. He acquired their love of education and went on to study it in college. After graduation, he went into teaching and eventually became an administrator at a school. When he came to BJU Press, he brought along his knowledge of successful education and applied it to Distance Learning courses. No artist is ever fully satisfied with a piece, so he made it his commitment to create better learning experiences for your children.

Better Efficiency in Distance Learning

In the early days of online courses, there were few standards for how to put a course together. Each course differed according to the instructor’s style. Parents and students had to learn how each teacher did assessments, gave notes, and set up schedules. Today, Steve works to standardize the courses so that you always know what to expect from a new course.

Better Engagement in Distance Learning

Keeping your children engaged goes beyond getting their attention through the teacher’s personality—though it is hard to ignore Mrs. Walker when she’s excited. Keeping students engaged means making sure they’re involved in the instruction. Steve has been working with the teachers to add academic supports that encourage student involvement, such as the guided notes and clear visuals that  you may have already benefited from.

Better Effectiveness in Distance Learning

In order to make the courses as effective as they can be, Steve evaluates each course carefully. He and his team look at how courses present information and whether the videos provide manageable chunks of material. They also make sure that all other material complements the information, so that together, the lesson becomes a balanced meal.

When approaching each new Distance Learning course, Steve’s primary goal focuses on  making the course better. There’s always a new and flashy way to create art, but he’s not just after new. He takes a careful look at the previous edition of that course, sees what can be improved, and ensures that what was already excellent comes through just as well as before, if not better. He wants parents to look at our catalog, see a new course, and know that it’s better than before.

 

The Standard for Thoughtful Readers

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thoughtful readers
As a Christian, you know that there’s no such thing as reading for mindless entertainment. Books teach in ways that we often don’t understand. And as a Christian parent, you want your children to be taking in valuable lessons from the books they read. Your children’s ability to carefully evaluate everything they take in is a key part of their growth toward biblical maturity. This careful evaluation implies truly wrestling with the books they read. If your children can become thoughtful readers, then you know that they will be well equipped as adults in a world full of misdirection. So how do you encourage your children to be thoughtful readers? By building a familiarity with the only Book that truly matters.

The Foundation for Thoughtful Readers

Every thoughtful reader should approach other books on the basis of a constant and continuous study of the Book. The only reliable standard for the believer is Scripture itself. When the writers of Scripture penned God-breathed words, they wrote widely—of eternity past to eternity future, of battles and births, obedience and obstinacy. They wrote accounts of real people, recorded parables that came from the lips of our Savior, and produced the most beautiful literature known to man. And there is not a higher standard against which to evaluate a story.

Features of That Foundation

When Christ used the vehicle of story, He set the stage for contemplation that leads to biblical understanding. The same should be true of any worthy book. We can learn so much from these scriptural examples. There are good role models and bad ones as well as good actions and bad—but all for our instruction. Some stories clearly spell out the theme, while others require the reader to evaluate and draw a conclusion. Although the length and delivery of these stories differ, the resolution of the problem of sin—the central conflict—is true to the Book as it must be in lesser books as well.

The stories from the Old Testament include exciting plots, peopled by actual characters not unlike people we may know. There is sin, providing literary conflict, that sets each story in action; and before the conflict reaches a resolution (within varying timelines), the story addresses the sin.

The parables of the New Testament demonstrate our Lord’s creativity as He crafted each word picture or narrative to grab the attention of the listeners. Sometimes He told the story along with the lesson we should learn. Sometimes He spoke in metaphors that required the listener to read between the lines, as some may say. Other times He told the story but waited to give the explanation to certain listeners at another time. As these parables unfold, we see that some seeds flourished, and some withered and died; some wedding guests were welcomed, and some were turned away; some servants were faithful, and some were not.

Foundational Examples

In one account Jonah receives a command, runs the other way, and begins to experience the consequences in the space of three short verses. His whole story is a narrative told in only four chapters, woven into the fabric of the Old Testament. In another instance a longer story tells about Joseph, ill-treated by his brothers and sold into slavery. Long years pass as Joseph comes to manhood and becomes the instrument of God used to deliver his family. His brother Reuben’s guilt begins at the pit and ends in a palace many years later, recorded over several chapters in Genesis.

Biblical narratives demonstrate variety and creativity, and they offer many different topics to interest a range of readers. There is all of this and more in the inspired Word, the Book that is the guide for believers in all things. And all of these concepts can direct your children’s thinking in all their readings.

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Nancy Lohr is acquisitions editor at JourneyForth, a division of BJU Press. She has edited dozens of books over the last twenty years and is a writer as well, having authored two historical novels for children, curriculum stories and articles, and numerous book reviews and articles for parents and educators. Nancy was an educator and children’s librarian before moving into publishing, and she loves to see young readers develop into capable and satisfied readers.