BJU Press Blog

math

Our Distance Learning Teachers Have Quite the Character

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There wouldn’t be Distance Learning daily video lessons without our teachers. They’re the ones who generate the excitement, script the lessons, and bravely face the camera on recording days. How would you like to do all that? I didn’t think so—me either.

Sometimes because of all the seriousness of recording lessons, you only get to experience one side of these teachers’ multi-faceted personalities. So without further ado, let’s view a “different” side of three of our Distance Learning teachers.

Miss Jessica Ingersoll

As an elementary Distance Learning teacher, Miss Ingersoll enjoys many things, and near the top of the list is being your child’s teacher. Watch “Meet Our New Teacher” for some fun facts about Miss Ingersoll. See what similarities your child can relate to. You can view a sample daily video lesson for her courses at the links below.

Mr. Bill Harmon

As a secondary Distance Learning teacher, Mr. Harmon tackles the subjects your child (and you) might find difficult. His unique approach creates memories your family will never forget. Watch “Experiencing Chemistry with Dry Ice” for a sample of how he conducts scientific experiments on camera. And yes, in case you’re wondering, he’s this crazy off camera too! Take a look for yourself by viewing a sample daily video lesson for each of his courses at the links below.

Mrs. Debbie Overly & Distance Learning Families

Elementary Distance Learning teacher Mrs. Overly shares a funny anecdote about an early filming experience in “Homeschool Families Share About Distance Learning,” an interview style video from a homeschool convention. You’ll also hear from other homeschool parents and students about their experience with Distance Learning video lessons. Mrs. Overly is well known and loved by her students. She includes many demonstrations and hands-on activities in her daily video lessons to help your child learn. View a sample daily video lesson from each of her courses at the links below.

Your family has the opportunity to meet several different Distance Learning teachers and attend their workshop sessions at homeschool conventions this year. Follow our BJU Press Homeschool Facebook page for announcements about where the teachers will be.

Is Bible the Icing on the Cake?

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Icing on the cake. We use this phrase to indicate that something good has been added to something that is already good. There’s no change to the thing being added to, but it makes the thing extra nice.

In her book Total Truth, Nancy Pearcey uses this metaphor to describe a mistake that many Christian educators make. They’re trying to change the educational cake to make it Christian by adding the icing of prayer and devotionals, but the core of the material covered doesn’t change. It’s the same secular education that public schools peddle.

So often Christians take something that is fundamentally secular and spread the Bible on it like icing on a cake. But it isn’t a good cake to start with; it’s poison.

When we decide to educate our children at home, we may do it because we want them to have a wholesome atmosphere. Or we want to personally teach them the gospel and challenge them to walk according to God’s Word. But what about the academic education we’re giving them? Is it a biblical cake? Or have we merely added icing to the secular cake?

Christianity on the Surface

As Christian homeschool families, we should try to make sure the education our children receive is Bible based. We don’t teach evolution as science, which is very important. But beyond observing that God created all things, is our teaching different from what they would hear in a public school classroom?

Here are some attempts at making teaching Christian that I’ve observed. As you read through them, ask yourself if they’re using a new recipe or only adding a devotional layer to the teaching.

  • “The plus sign looks like a cross, so every time we do addition we can think about Jesus dying on the cross for us.”
  • “We have to have consistency in verb tense. Remember that we should be consistent in our Christian lives.”
  • “Caterpillars go through a process called metamorphosis to become butterflies. Just like caterpillars, Christians are transformed at salvation.”

In each of these examples, the academic subject is used as an opportunity to consider something Christian. It’s not that such analogies related to math, grammar, and science are bad or wrong. The problem is that they’re merely icing on the cake. The subject matter is still the same; we’ve just added something on the surface that is biblical.

Beneath the Surface

What will happen if we fail to remake the teaching of a subject? What if we only make analogies when we stop talking about history or language arts to talk about the Bible? If we continue to teach coursework in a similar way to the public school down the road, we’ve failed to approach all learning from a biblical starting point. We’re adding Christian icing to the secular cake. And if you start with a poisonous cake, good frosting isn’t going to fix it.

As our children get older, they’ll recognize that the icing can be removed and they’ll still have the same secular cake. Math, language arts, science, and history all work without the icing that we spread on top of the subjects. Perceptive children will see that they can drop God’s authority in their lives and still use math, science, and other subjects.

Take math as an example. Our children must learn that our use of math is subject to God. If not, they may believe that they can use math without submitting themselves to the Lord, using it fraudulently instead of lovingly. They need to understand that we use tools like math to follow God’s commands to rule over God’s good creation in ways that are in keeping with His law.

That’s why we need to go beyond just adding icing onto the cake. We need to use a new recipe for a new cake—that is, learning transformed by the Word of God.

Worldview Shaping 

We transform learning through biblical worldview shaping. In future posts, I’ll explore what worldviews are and provide a model that helps us use the Bible to transform our children’s education.

In the meantime, think about your children’s education at home. Are you using a new recipe for their cake or putting icing on a secular cake?

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A Look Inside Algebra 2

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Algebra 2 Student Text

If you’re like me, you like to get a good look at a product before you buy it and certainly before you trust it to help educate your children. To make that easier for you, we recently filmed a video in which I review some of the features of the latest edition of our Algebra 2 Student Text.

Algebra 2 is new, and as someone who spends a lot of time working in math textbooks, I was really impressed with these materials. Even if you don’t have a high school math student, you should take five minutes to watch this video. It gives a good overview of how we structure our math program and how the BJU Press curriculum as a whole can help you build your student’s biblical worldview.

Check out the video below!

Activity: Learning with a Pumpkin

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One thing many children look forward to about fall is getting to carve or decorate a pumpkin. As a parent, you can capitalize on that excitement by squeezing some learning in with all of the fun. Here are some ways to practice science and math skills with your child while pumpkin carving.

Before carving the pumpkin, start off by weighing it. A normal household scale will do. If the pumpkin is not too heavy, have your child pick it up and guess the weight. Then he can weigh it. This activity will help build his ability to associate perceived weight with an actual measurement. Our pumpkin weighed in at a whopping 14.5 pounds!

pumpkinblogpost-weight

Next, your child can measure the pumpkin’s circumference using a piece of string or yarn along with a yardstick or tape measure. Once he has determined the circumference, take the calculations to the next level (if age appropriate) and have your child use the following geometric formulas to find the diameter and radius.

C = πd (circumference = 3.14 × diameter)

d = 2r (diameter = 2 × radius)

pumpkinblogpost-circumference

After you or your child cut the pumpkin open (we recommend providing supervision), have your children count the total number of pumpkin seeds by separating them into rows of five or ten. This practice is great for helping younger children understand multiplication.

Learning with a Pumpkin-Counting

Once the inside of the pumpkin is cleaned out, have your child fill it with water using a measuring cup to determine how much liquid it can hold. Ask him to estimate beforehand how much he thinks it will hold and then compare that with his findings. Subtract to see how far off the estimate was. Our pumpkin held just over 5 liters of water.

pumpkinblogpost-volume

I hope you enjoy using this learning activity with your child. Be sure to subscribe to our homeschool email for more fun homeschooling ideas!

What Does Math Look Like?

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Typically we don’t think about math as something to look at. It’s a field of study, not a physical object, but being able to see math is a skill that can be invaluable to children. Let me explain.

I regularly volunteer as a math tutor at a ministry that helps adults obtain a GED. Every student I work with learns at a different pace. Some of my students move through the material quickly, doing much of the math mentally. They see the patterns and are able to apply them to new material as they progress.

Other students are able to work though the math, but much more slowly. They stick to procedures, writing out each and every step of all the problems but never really understanding how the math works or how it could be used. It’s usually not a matter of difference in ability; it’s that the one group is able to visualize how math works while the other can’t. This difference probably has a lot to do with how the students were exposed to math when they were in the elementary grades.

JH_Math_2

Visualizing Not Just Repeating

Memorizing steps and formulas and then practicing them over and over might allow someone to pass a test, but it doesn’t promote retention. It also doesn’t train children to be good problem solvers. Teaching children to visualize how math works helps them build the problem-solving skills they will need as they move into advanced math.

Let’s look at an example page from our Math 5 that does a great job of showing this idea in action. (Example is from BJU Press Math 5 Student Worktext, page 129.)

math5student_p129-cropped

A student could solve these comparisons by changing the denominators to come up with the right answer. That’s a correct way of solving these math problems, and Math 5 teaches that approach. However, as the lesson shows, it’s also important to learn how to solve simple math problems mentally. By using strategies like thinking of ½ and seeing if each fraction is more or less or comparing the denominators, students are able to easily solve simple problems, check their answers, and learn new concepts more quickly.

Learning to See Math

When teaching math, parents should—in my opinion—approach each problem from various angles, even if the child gets the correct answer immediately. Use visuals such as money, cut-out shapes, and manipulatives to show how a problem looks both physically and on paper. Reinforce knowledge by asking questions whenever possible instead of just explaining how things work. As children learn to visualize math, they’ll begin to see math as a series of meaningful challenges to overcome as opposed to a boring list of problems to work though.

For more teaching tips like these, be sure to sign up for our homeschool email.