BJU Press Blog

PREPARE

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“But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9    

Surely the most devastating blow that the devil can hurl at a believer and the darkest gloom that can overtake a soul cannot prevail against this joyous declaration. If no other banner serves to revive or inspire, I hoist this one and turn my face unflinching toward the battle.

cover image of Wonderful Words

“Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilt prepare their heart” (Psalm 10:17). “The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all” (Psalm 103:19). “Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34). “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2). “If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work” (2 Timothy 2:21). “And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 21:2).

GOLDEN THOUGHT: I go to prepare a place for you.

[Excerpt adapted from Wonderful Words by Stewart Custer (August 17 reading).]

Make Your Kindergarten Curriculum Work for You

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KindergartenStructure

Quite a few homeschoolers attend my church. Several months ago, I had nursery duty with three other homeschool moms. The topic of conversation? Homeschool curriculum. Even in that small group, everyone had an opinion about what curriculum worked best for certain types of learners.

There are a lot of curriculum choices out there, and each of them has different strengths. My school-age daughters have both used the BJU Press curriculum. My oldest daughter has used it for K4, K5, and first grade; and my middle daughter has used it for K4. They have very different learning styles, but one of the strengths of BJU Press curriculum is its flexibility.

The curriculum isn’t designed for one type of learner—it’s designed for all types of learners. In a lot of ways, the BJU Press curriculum is like a roadmap—the objective is the same for everyone, but you get to choose where you stop along the way and how long you linger at each place. Below are two examples of how you can customize the BJU Press kindergarten curriculum to fit your child’s needs. I’ve chosen to focus here on the kindergarten curriculum since I’ve had one child use it already and another child who will use it this fall.

Customizing Your Lessons

One way you can make BJU Press’s kindergarten curriculum work for you is by customizing individual lessons to fit the learning style of your child. You don’t have to do everything the Teacher’s Edition suggests. For example, the K5 curriculum includes a lot of songs that are designed to help kindergarteners remember challenging concepts (such as the difference between the hour hand and the minute hand on a clock).

My oldest daughter doesn’t remember songs well—the Lord hasn’t gifted her with that ability. I would have probably skipped over that part of the lesson. However, since my middle daughter loves music and singing really helps her learn, we will probably sing every song in the book multiple times.

Making Use of Optional Activities

Another way you can make BJU Press’s kindergarten curriculum work for you is by using some of the optional activities in the Teacher’s Resource CD to provide extra practice for your child if he or she is struggling with a concept. For example, BJU Press Math K5  introduces kindergarteners to the concept of fractions by teaching parts of a whole.

If my middle daughter struggles to understand that concept, I could pull out the Teacher’s Resource CD that’s attached to the inside back cover of the Teacher’s Edition. This CD contains an entire section of extended activities that are organized by chapter. Since I know that my daughter is a very kinesthetic learner, we would probably play the shape matching game that is explained in chapter 13.

You as the parent/teacher know your child best; you know your child’s strengths and weaknesses. So take advantage of the flexibility of the BJU Press curriculum and customize it to meet your child’s learning needs.

Our Homeschool Field Trip Journal

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Field Trip Journal

This summer our family had the opportunity to visit Jamestown Settlement. It isn’t on the original site of the first permanent English settlement in North America, but it is nearby on the James River. It’s a terrific place to teach children about history. All over the living history museum, docents encourage the children to touch everything. There are replica ships, a life-sized fort, even a Powhatan village. The site also has hands-on activities, so my daughters got to help remove fur from a deerskin with oyster shells and try on armor.

My wife and I had visited Jamestown Settlement before, so we knew the children would have fun and get an introduction to colonial life. But we wanted our four-year-old and six-year-old to view this as a learning opportunity and not an amusement park with a historical theme. But on the other hand, we didn’t want to remove the joy of learning that comes from an opportunity like this. So we developed a field trip journal. Using learning strategies that we gleaned from the BJU Press reading curriculum, we planned “pre-reading” and “post-reading” questions to improve our children’s learning comprehension.

Before the Field Trip

Just as we ask pre-reading questions to activate prior learning before reading a story, we asked our children to answer questions about what they knew before we arrived at Jamestown Settlement. Our six-year-old has finished first grade, so she wrote short sentences to answer questions. But both she and our four-year-old used crayons to draw pictures to express their thoughts. As they drew pictures of Native American tepees and horses, they were thinking through what they already knew about early American life. Their pictures were wrong since they drew cone-shaped tents. But that was good. They were setting themselves up to have their misconceptions corrected on the field trip.

We also asked them what they were looking forward to seeing the most at Jamestown. This created a sense of excitement and helped them look forward to the new things they would be learning.

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After the Field Trip

Leaving the settlement, we sat at a picnic table to eat sandwiches, chips, and grapes. After lunch we pulled out their journals and asked them some more questions. We guided them to think through what they had learned and to draw pictures of the Powhatan huts, so they could see the difference between what they thought they knew before the field trip and what they knew afterwards. We also asked them to draw what they most  enjoyed seeing. These questions cemented the learning for our children and helped turn a fun trip into long-term memory. The journals also became souvenirs that were far more valuable than the ceramic mugs at the gift shop.

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POUR

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Pouring can either empty or fill.

The clouds must drain for the earth to drink.

How encouraged I am by the verses below to see the link between Christ’s death and the gift of His Holy Spirit.

cover image of Wonderful Words
Concerning Messiah: “Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into thy lips: therefore God hath blessed thee for ever” (Psalm 45:2). “Pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us” (Psalm 62:8). God says, “For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring” (Isaiah 44:3). “Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12). “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions” (Joel 2:28).

GOLDEN THOUGHT: I will pour water upon him that is thirsty.

[Excerpt adapted from Wonderful Words by Stewart Custer (August 10 reading).]

Comprehending Comprehension

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Comprehension

Many homeschool curricula claim to encourage comprehension in children, but what does it mean to comprehend something?

Comprehension is a group of skills that we use to relate language to meaning. The ability to comprehend takes place on four levels: literal (recognizing and remembering information); interpretive (receiving information from statements through analysis and synthesis; making inferences); critical (evaluating and making judgments about statements); and creative (appreciating and responding emotionally to statements). Taken together, these four levels make up total comprehension, which means that a child understands what he has read, even if he doesn’t know everything about it.

Essentially, this group of skills reveals Bloom’s taxonomy for the cognitive domain. (See “Applying Bloom’s Taxonomy” for more information on this topic.)

Does a curriculum emphasize “comprehension” by requiring a student to retain and repeat information or to pronounce words accurately? Or does it require the student to use information in real-life situations (application)? Break down information into a simpler form (analysis)? Put information together with other facts to form conclusions (synthesis)? Pass judgment on the validity of ideas (evaluation)? All of these activities make up total comprehension—relating language, the printed material on the page, to meaning.

Here’s a fun illustration of these levels of comprehension based on Lewis Carroll’s poem “Jabberwocky.” Read the following lines from Carroll’s poem, and then consider the questions below.

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

  • What did the slithy toves do in the wabe?
  • Fill in the blank: The borogoves were _____.
  • What things were outgrabing?

If your child answers the questions correctly, has he comprehended the material? In the limited sense of literal comprehension, yes, because he has accurately retained and repeated the information.

To find out whether he can relate language to meaning in this case, you could ask different kinds of questions like the following:

  • How can you help someone be mimsy tomorrow? (application)
  • Explain how a tove becomes slithy. (analysis)
  • Which is better, outgrabing or gimbling? (evaluation)
  • Did the poem make you feel brillig? Why or why not? (appreciation)

Of course, the child cannot answer any of these questions (and neither can you!) because the nonsensical nature of the words makes it impossible to get beyond the level of literal comprehension.

You must decide whether the narrow or the broad approach to comprehension (literal versus total) supports your family’s philosophy of education. If you want your child to read eloquently at an early age, to memorize math facts, and to recite dates in history, then stress performance over understanding. This curriculum will reflect the narrow definition of comprehension—literal level only.

But if you want your child to know not only how to read but also what he is reading, to see the concepts as well as the facts in math, and to discern and apply the lessons of history, then stress understanding over performance. This curriculum will be designed with total comprehension as the goal.

By determining your family’s educational philosophy first and then examining the curricula available, you can more wisely choose the one that helps your family achieve the kind of education you are working for.

BJU Press textbooks strive to promote total comprehension in each child’s education. We want to encourage children to know not just how words relate to each other but to be able to interpret, evaluate, and respond to the ideas those words communicate.

Take a look inside our textbooks to get a better idea of how we encourage comprehension.