Modifying BJU Distance Learning
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- čas přidán 26. 06. 2024
- Find out how I am modifying the BJU Press Distance Learning program for my kids to help minimize screen time and reduce the workload.
BJU Press Distance Learning*
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*Some links are affiliate links. Should you purchase through an affiliate link, I will receive a commission. I only recommend products I have used and love. Thank you!
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I am one of “those” that tries to do everything in the curriculum. Ty for helping me see that it’s not always necessary!
Great video. In the past I have tried to do all of the curriculum that we were using and we felt so overwhelmed and burned out by the end of the year. It is so good to hear another home school mom say this. Great tips.
This is so funny because I have this video topic on my list to film. I see so many trying to do it all and feeling frustrated. This is so helpful to moms new to DL. I do so many of the same things you do to make it work for us.
Thank you so much for all that you do! I've been homeschooling for 9 years and we are about to use BJU Press for the first time for my upcoming 9th grader! Thinking about the high school years stresses me out a bit. Your videos are extremely helpful! Thank your for taking the time out of your busy day to make them.
Thanks so much for this video! We tried all of BJU Distance Learning last year and gave up because it was so overwhelming, I wish I had this encouragement and information then! It gives me hope that it may work out in the future for our homeschool :) I really do love their distance learning program!
Thank you for your encouragement! I love Bju press! But I did get overwhelmed with the work. I like your idea and tips you shared about some times verbally going over the lessons. My kids are in 4th and 6th grade. This was our first year home schooling! The year went well. Thank for sharing your experience with Bju. It helped me to choose the curriculum. You are an awesome mom and teacher. God bless you!
Love love the video! I am doing mostly buy press, and it is overwhelming and just busy. thanks a bunch..
Love your videos! I feel so encouraged after watching.
I'm so glad!
Very useful information. Thank you!
Thank you for this!!! BJU overwhelmed us last year to the point she dreads school, but she likes the videos but the worktext pages were so much... I was gonna switch but this video has me thinking we might stay
Glad it was helpful! We definitely don’t do everything with BJU. It’s more of a buffet that we pick and choose from.
This video is awesome! I've been thinking of ways to minimize the busy work...know I won't feel guilty when I tell the kids they don't have to do a WT page :) Thanks!
My soon to be 3rd grader and first time homeschooled child was near by while I listened to ideas how to prepare for next year and not overwhelme everyone in the house... she heard "no tests, quizes" and was WOW I WANT TO HOMESCHOOL LIKE THAT... WOOOOWWW
I agree...great info!
This was so helpful, and encouraging. I’m going to be new to BJU and I’m not used to having so many subjects in one day. Thanks for sharing.
I love this video so much!! You just said it all so well! These things are so pertinent to my family!
Shannin Moreau I’m so glad! 💕
Thank you for tagging this video for me. I am terrible about wanting everything on the checklist done. I always think it's there for some purpose right? Well over the years I am getting better. Especially since my upcoming 4th grader isnt big with doing a ton of paperwork. I'm learning. It is so hard though to determine what paper has value to the lesson sometimes and which is the busy work. I needed this video and I saved it so I can watch it again when BJU releases the videos for this school year.❤
This is so helpful. Thank you so much for this tips.
I am new here and I just want you to know, I really love your videos and you are so thorough and helpful.
We’ve been tgtb and I’m moving us to BJU and trying to determine what all we need.
You’re a lovely woman 💖 thank u
Excellent!!! Needed this!! Thank you!! ^_^
Oh my thank you for this! I’ve kinda fallen into this trap and I was drowning
GREAT VIDEO - GREAT TIPS to use with ANY curriculum :-)
Thank you so much for this! We are using Life Science (based on your review!) for my 8th grader. I think it is an awesome curriculum! After covering EVERY SINGLE aspect for chapter 1, my daughter got a 70% on her first test, was in tears, and was totally stressed out! After a slight overhaul (ditching some of the handouts, utilizing the guided notes, using the some of the section quizes as tests (hence skipping some of the chapter tests)), she's thriving, remembering the content and earning her A's. Your video reinforced that it was OK to modify it to make it work for us! Thank you, thank you!
Yay! I'm glad some modifications made the course more effective for her. That's the beauty of homeschooling. :)
We have a very large family and because my oldest is special needs, I absolutely can't do detailed work with the kids. I also don't like them schooling for 4 hours a day because we do lots of learning field trips. I'm needing to learn how to have them do very condensed work with this program. Thank you for helping.
Thank you so much for sharing how you have been homeschooling. Do you have your children do book reports?
Thank you for sharing! I do a lot of the same things as you. Except I have my oldest take the spelling tests on Fridays. What do you use for phonics?
Hello! I am currenlty watching all of your videos and absolutly love all the information!! I am wanting to ask a quick question regarding Bju Press Homeschool online distance learning. We currently are using a virtual public school. My child is so stressed and distracted because she is online for so long. She also knows some of the curriculum but they make her still do all the videos online. My questions are: When you do the online distance learning do you have the option to skip videos and do you have access to the teacher pdf files just incase you need to reference or need to do a quick lesson? Thank you
Hi! Happy to answer your questions as best I can. You do have the option to skip any lessons/videos you don't want your student to do. You can also opt to teach a lesson yourself instead of having them watch the video. You will have access to pdf files of the teacher's manuals through the new Homeschool Hub. Let me know if you have any other questions.
It's nice to know we're not the only ones drowning in school work. My son is doing 3rd grade...and this program is crushing his love of learning.
We're going to finish up BJU this year, but I'm definitely planning on finding a different curriculum for next year. This program costs SO MUCH! Why pay almost $1000 for something you're going to skip a bunch of material?
$1,000 is very a very little bit of money considering you no longer have to teach the subjects at hand. We use DVDs and it allows my children to get school done while I cook and clean. The cost of hiring someone to clean my house would be way more than $1,000 a year 😂
Thank you so much for sharing this video!! I am just wondering, when you don’t do the busy work, what do you do then? Do you start another chapter of the same subject or go to other subjects and speed up the school time? Because I am overwhelmed by the amount of things I have to go through with this curriculum, and so is my children!! I think bju press is great, but, it will take me about 1 1/2 year (or more)to finish all this curriculum for my first and third grade children!!! I try to every thing!!
We do one lesson per subject a day. If we skip busy work then we just move on to the next subject. Keeps our school day shorter. Skipping entire lessons means our school year is a lot shorter too!
Janelle Knutson I really appreciate all your work, advice, everything you do!! It has helped me a lot, I am sure not only me, but everybody that needs help with homeschool. God bless you and your family so much for your great videos. Once more thank you so much 😊
Fabiana C
How long are the videos in 5th grade? I’m
Considering this curriculum, I want the video instruction to let him be more independent but not sure he will sit through long videos? That’s for this great informative video!
Different subjects and different grades have different length videos. Newer, more updated videos seem to be shorter than the older ones. Check the description on their website. It usually says the average video length for each course.
You mentioned you do not use the phonics in BJU. Which phonics do you recommend for 1st grade?
I prefer phonics curriculum based off of the Orton-Gillingham method. My top 3 choices for phonics/spelling:
Spell to Write and Read swrtraining.com/
Logic of English bit.ly/3cN1fMt
All About Learning bit.ly/2zgBmXw
For grades 1-3 math, how often are students required to watch a video? Every day, or maybe once a week like MUS?
Linsey K BJU DL has videos for every day.
How do you modify the curriculum for 9th grade and up?? This is our first year using the DVDs and we are absolutely DROWNING in the workload! Every day has been a struggle, and my child who has always LOVED school, and even wanted to be a teacher, has done a complete 180 as this distance learning has taken all of the love of learning away. After only 2 weeks in we are miserable.
I'm sorry to hear that. I'm sure that is a great frustration to you and to your child. Remember that you are not a slave to the curriculum rather it is there to serve you and your child. If they can learn through reading the text then do that and skip the videos. Or watch only the sections of the video that are needed to help with understanding a topic. Do they already know the information in a lesson? Then skip the entire thing or have them take the test and if they pass then move on to the next lesson. Not all the assignments need to be done. Not all of the textbook and video lessons need to be completed. Public schools never finish an entire textbook. Teachers skip sections for the sake of time and you can do the same. The online option has suggestions in the parents forum for chapters that can be skipped for each upper grade course but I am not sure how you can get access to that with the DVD option. That to say that you can skip things that you don't think are as important for your student to learn (even in the upper grades). I hope some of these ideas help. You definitely want your student to love learning again.
I was wondering too. I've never used bju. I'm between that an Abeka for my 9th grader. There is so much busy work with Abeka, but bju may be the same. I'm wondering if it being accredited will allow for modification or if we will have to do everything to be accredited. Up until this point I've tried many different curriculums and modified them. The accreditation is my main concern.
Can you do a video on how to use the BJU grading system? I'm so confused on how to do that and how the record the grades.
Since I don't keep grades for elementary (and those are the kids who use BJU DL) I haven't used the grading system all that much. I did let it keep grades for 7th and 8th grade science but I never imputed grades. I'm just letting it record quizzes and tests. It is on my to-do list to figure out!
This video covered a little bit on the online grading system: czcams.com/video/0uNcGe-Gcm8/video.html
Hello, is the distance learning the same as the dvds for elementary age students?
Yes, same videos just different ways of receiving them. We don’t have the best internet so I like dvd.
Janelle are you using BJU online for High School? Have you modified it?
Yes, we have used BJU online for high school math, science, history, English (grammar, literature, writing), and Spanish. I have modified all these subjects. Before they switched to the Homeschool Hub, the previous online platform had a parent discussion/question section and there was a list (for each course) of chapters that could be skipped without missing necessary content. I also modify in other ways as well.
Are your children accredited? If we did BJU online, would we be able to modify? I don't fully understand how it all works with the school keeping track of what all the kids get done.
I know it gets a little confusing! Let me try to clarify....
Curriculum cannot be accredited. Only schools can be accredited. Therefore, if you want your child to be in an accredited program then you need to enroll them in an accredited school. There are homeschool programs/schools that are accredited. For example, The Academy of Home Education is a program/school that you can enroll in that uses (and is associated with) BJU Press curriculum.
So, I use BJU Press curriculum but I do not have my kids enrolled in the Academy therefore nothing that they are doing at home is accredited.
Some families use BJU Press curriculum AND are enrolled in The Academy of Home Education so the work that their student does is accredited.
Some accredited programs allow you some freedom in modifying curriculum and some are stricter. You would have to check with the program/school you are thinking of enrolling in to make sure they are accredited and to see what the requirements are for work load and modifying things.
I hope that makes sense.
How long is your childs typical school day?
It really varies depending on the child, their age, and what curriculum we are using. I did a video about this topic that I will link to. Currently, kindergarten is taking us 30 minutes. 3rd, 5th and 7th grader are taking around 3 to 4 hours. High school student is around 4 to 5 hours and she works completely independently. czcams.com/video/TEfZMlt8i8E/video.html
New to homeschooling: If you skip lessons or activities, then how do you reach the required hours?
Great question! First, many states do not require a certain amount of hours for homeschooling so this would not be an issue. Other states do require a certain number of hours. Sometimes doing all of BJU DL gives you far more hours per day than you actually need. But more importantly, many other activities can be counted towards school hours that are outside of the traditional textbook. These would be things like field trips count as educational school hours, baking/cooking in the kitchen with you can count as school hours as you are teaching an art. Reading books, working on a craft and/or construction project all can be included in school hours. So, even though you cut out a lot of book work, you are still able to get in all the hours you need. Hope that answers your question.
@@JanelleKnutson Thank you. My state requires 600 core (400 must be in the home ) and 400 elective.
I'm doing the Bju distant learning with Bible truths and adding another sign language curriculum. I'm so afraid if I modify too much, I won't log enough hours.
If you are overwhelmed, you aren’t praying enough. Jesus is the answer; blaming the “system” or “videos” or “tests” and/or “quizzes” is a tactic of the devil. Stop giving into Satan’s plan. Jesus is the lord! Prayer will make the system work. Here is a tip - after completing a worksheet, a child should receive a “sticker!” As a reward.
I appreciate you sharing your thoughts/views. I welcome different opinions than my own.
One thing I love about homeschooling is the ability to choose curriculum and alter curriculum based on my children's needs. There is no perfect curriculum. They are all created by sinful humans and most curriculum authors actually encourage homeschool parents to use the curriculum as a tool to educate their children versus being a slave to the curriculum.
When my kids are overwhelmed by their workload I have to evaluate whether they are feeling overwhelmed because I am asking them to do more than they are capable of (ability and maturity wise) or whether it is a heart/character issue. Obviously, heart issues need prayer and loving correction.
This is my second time watching this, just want to tell you thank u for clarifying these minimalist concepts, makes me feel not as guilty. I’ve tried to do everything before, and it makes me feel like a total failure 😣 this time of year, i feel like i failed. So again, thank u for this. I’ll be using these concepts to end out the year. Also, we are still slightly behind from receiving curriculum late during the whole covid ordeal. 🫤 Grace, lots of Grace.
Have you watched my video about falling behind in homeschooling? It might be an encouragement to you as well. Here is the link: czcams.com/video/z8qPykYRplU/video.html