• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

BJU Press Blog

  • Home
  • Shop
    • Shaping Worldview
  • Simplified Homeschool
  • Successful Learning

SANCTIFICATION

October 5, 2016 by Cosette

Sanctification, the process of our becoming more and more like Christ throughout our lives, is nourished by good habits. The two most important habits are the daily study of Scripture and prayer. In Joshua 1:8 the Lord promises success when we “meditate” continually on God’s word, and in Hebrews 11:6 He assures us that He is the “rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” What glorious promises these are to cheer us on in our steady pursuit of holiness!

cover image of Wonderful Words

“But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour” (1 Thessalonians 4:3–4). “But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth” (2 Thessalonians 2:13). “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied” (2 Peter 1:2).

GOLDEN THOUGHT: For this is the will of God, even your sanctification.

[Excerpt adapted from Wonderful Words by Stewart Custer (October 5 reading).]

Filed Under: Devotions Tagged With: devotional, excerpt, Stewart Custer, wonderful words

5 Ways to See if Your Child is Learning

October 4, 2016 by Ben

Have you ever instructed your child to clean their room without checking on their work? Would you let your child bake some cookies by themselves before you observed that they’ve mastered measuring ingredients or using the oven? In the same way, we have to check on our children to make sure they’ve learned what we’re trying to teach. What we need are assessments.

An assessment is simply a way of finding out if your child learned what you set out to teach. Most of the time we think about assessments as only tests and quizzes. In reality you can assess what your child has learned in a number of ways, some of which are fun for her.

5-ways

What Kinds of Assessments?

So if we want to see if our children, particularly the young ones, have learned something and we don’t want to give them quizzes every day, how do we see what they’re learning? We can use an assessment that matches our child’s way of learning. Here are five fun ways to see if your child is learning what you’re teaching.

  1. Ask Questions

Most children know far more than they can write on the page. So ask them questions that they can respond to verbally.  You shouldn’t grade these questions. If your child reads about the life cycle of a butterfly in science, ask them what the four stages of the butterfly’s life are. If they miss the question, have them reread the appropriate paragraph. Our teacher’s editions provide great suggested questions you can use to see if your children understood what they were reading.

  1. Draw pictures

This is what I did with the 5 themes for Heritage Studies 2. I didn’t expect my daughter to memorize a definition she could write out on a test, but I wanted to see that she got the ideas. So I had her draw pictures of something from history, geography, culture, economics, and American citizenship. My daughter likes to draw, so she loved this activity.

  1. Act out an idea

If you want to see if your child understood a story they’ve read, have them act it out. If your child likes pretending, they’ll love playing the story, and you might get a chuckle yourself. In the meantime, you’ll know they understood the Reading story.

  1. Make something

When we learned about producers and consumers in Heritage Studies 2, I had my daughter create a “business” and a flyer that advertised what she could produce. She decided to make paper dogs and sell them for 10 cents each. I bought one of her paper dogs and asked “who was the producer, and who was the consumer?”

  1. Use the skill

When your children learn how to use a math concept, have them use it. So if we’ve baked 24 brownies for Bible Club and we’re expecting 18 children, I ask my daughter how many extra brownies we should expect to have. If we have 13 children, I ask if we have enough brownies to give each child two.

Can you think of other fun, hands-on ways to assess what your child’s learned?

Filed Under: Simplified Homeschool Tagged With: activities, assessments, hands-on learning, questions

A Hands-on Approach to the Planning Stage

September 29, 2016 by Jenna

Helping your children master writing skills presents a challenge when working with different learning styles. When I taught freshman English, my students were allowed to choose their own approach for planning. Some just made lists of questions while others constructed graphic organizers like bubble charts or word webs. They usually found ways to adapt the process to their own learning styles. But I often wondered how I could adapt the planning stage for hands-on learners.

planning-activity_writing

Maybe you’ve asked a similar question. Here’s one way you can help your child get a literal feel for the planning stage.

First, he’ll need a lot of notecards—3×5 cards cut in halves or fourths work best—and a pencil.

We’ll use the comparison-and-contrast essay and the sample brainstorming from chapter 3 of Writing & Grammar 12 as a foundation for this activity. (Example is from Student Worktext, page 64.)

wg12st_p64

Next, instead of making an ordinary list, have your child write each new idea he has about roller coasters (or whatever other topic he chooses) on a notecard.

Once he has a good number of cards (fifteen to twenty would be a good start), have him sort through his cards, putting all the items of a similar nature together in the same pile. For example, we can categorize items such as height, speed, rough, and smooth from the list above as physical characteristics.

After sorting the cards into piles according to categories, he should  label the back of each card according to the category it belongs to.

He may find that one of his ideas can act like a category itself, like kinds of seats with our roller coaster brainstorming. Or he might realize that some ideas don’t fit into any of his categories. Suggest that he spend more time thinking through these cards, just in case there are other ideas that he could connect the loose cards to. If there’s nothing else, let him return to his larger categories.

With a comparison-and-contrast essay, as in our example, your child would need to sort his cards down further into the categories of the two items he’s comparing—in this case, wooden roller coasters and steel roller coasters. In a different kind of essay, these larger categories could represent different major points in the argument and would be separated into sub-points.

From here, your child needs to make sure of the purpose of his essay. If he’s decided to prove that steel roller coasters are more fun than wooden ones, then he should look through his cards to see which of his categories support his position.

Finally, it’s time to organize the cards according to their strength. In writing, we often conclude with the strongest point because information given last is what readers remember best. If he’s decided that his strongest argument rests on a physical characteristic, he should put his cards from that category at the bottom of the stack.

When brainstorming on notecards, it’s easy for your child to handle the information in a more literal sense. He can rearrange and recategorize his ideas as he needs to, without the hassle and mess of crossing out and erasing. He can also add additional notes or pictures to his cards, or whatever helps him manipulate the information.

All our Writing & Grammar textbooks include detailed explanations for the planning stage of each writing assignment, and many of them have varying suggestions for different kinds of learners. Check out our complete line here!

Filed Under: Successful Learning Tagged With: homeschool, language arts, planning, writing, writing and grammar

RISE

September 28, 2016 by Cosette

Rising denotes energy. It gets its momentum from hope and strength. For the Christian, rising up is the product of God’s mercy. The psalmist calls the Lord “the lifter up of mine head” (Psalm 3:3). So He will be for us forevermore!

cover image of Wonderful Words

“At midnight I will rise to give thanks to thee because of thy righteous judgments” (Psalm 119:62). “For he [the Father] maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). “We remember that [he] said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again” (Matthew 27:63). “And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:4). “And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14). “And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again” (2 Corinthians 5:15).

Golden thought: He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.

[Excerpt adapted from Wonderful Words by Stewart Custer (September 28 reading).]

Filed Under: Devotions Tagged With: devotional, excerpt, Stewart Custer, wonderful words

How Long Should a Homeschool Day Last?

September 27, 2016 by BJU Press Writer

image

Have you ever heard the question: “How long should a homeschool day last”? Maybe you’ve even asked yourself this question. You can relax because there’s really no right or wrong answer. But if you’re concerned, here are some things to consider about the length of your school day:

  • What criteria are you using to evaluate your school day to determine why it’s taking so long? Choose a schedule that works for your family—not one set by other families’ clocks.
  • Do your children learn better by studying the lesson and then doing all the homework immediately with concepts still fresh in their minds? Or is it better when they have a more regimented routine with “subject hours” in which to learn their lessons and then use the remaining time for homework? Remember that you are always in charge of the schedule (even when using Distance Learning). How you organize the day may vary depending on what works best for you and your children.
  • Are your children goofing off or really struggling? Evaluating their activities during lesson time by noting any distractions or excuses to get up from the lesson could key you in on how well your child is learning.
  • How involved are you with your children’s progress? It’s important to make sure they comprehend and properly apply the information they learn.
  • How are you balancing extracurricular activities in your regular day? Do music lessons or sports overlap with academic lessons, pushing them back and extending your day? Have your other children bring independent work to complete, or watch Distance Learning video lessons in the car.
  • How many breaks do you take during the school day? How long do you take for lunch? Making a meal every day takes time (for you and your children); try getting ahead with food preparation. If your kids are older, they can serve themselves with something like DIY Lunch Stations.
  • Are your children studying every subject daily? Keep in mind that each subject is a minimum of a full semester of study. So in order to stay on schedule, they may need to study a subject only two or three days a week rather than daily.
  • Do you have your children estimate the time they think it will take to accomplish a task? Both average and special-needs students often benefit from a physical timer to help them stay focused and to learn to complete tasks within certain time limits. If you give your child the responsibility of choosing the time limit and finishing within the allotted time, it can help him develop analytical estimation and scheduling skills.
  • Are you able to prepare ahead for material that will be covered? Being prepared is a major part in keeping you and your children on the track to academic success and regular routine.

Find these tips helpful? Sign up for our homeschool email to receive more.

Filed Under: Simplified Homeschool Tagged With: homeschool, length of day, schedule, tips

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 87
  • Go to page 88
  • Go to page 89
  • Go to page 90
  • Go to page 91
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 149
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

As parents, teachers, or former homeschool students, we are passionate about homeschooling from a biblical worldview. We hope these teaching tips, fun activities, and inspirational stories support you in teaching your children.

Email Signup

Sign up for our homeschool newsletter and receive select blog posts, discounts, and more right to your inbox!

Connect with Us!

                    Instagram     

Read Posts on Specific Subjects

Early Learning
Foreign Language
History
Language Arts
Math
Science

Footer

Disclaimer

The BJU Press blog publishes content by different writers for the purpose of relating to our varied readers. Views and opinions expressed by these writers do not necessarily state or reflect the views of BJU Press or its affiliates. The fact that a link is listed on this blog does not represent or imply that BJU Press endorses its site or contents from the standpoint of ethics, philosophy, theology, or scientific hypotheses. Links are posted on the basis of the information and/or services that the sites offer. If you have comments, suggestions, questions, or find that one of the links no longer works, please contact us.

Pages

  • About BJU Press
  • Conversation Guidelines
  • Terms of Use & Copyright

Archives

© 2023 · BJU Press Homeschool