thowell Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 without the videos? I love the looks of their books and if I am going more textbook next year they are my top choice. However I can not afford the video system or all the extras. Just the books. Do you think at 4th and 7th grade a good bit of this could be independent? I still have time to teach a short lesson daily but need them to be able to complete the lessons on their own. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Down_the_Rabbit_Hole Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 I used BJU for many years and this is what I learned: The 7th grader, yes. The 4th grader, no. The elementary curriculum is very teacher intensive. The workbooks are just extra work. The real work happens in the discussions and hands on work guided by the teacher's manual. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3browneyedboys4me Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 I think so. I've used BJU for several years and we've really been impressed. I will eventually, I think, go to their online program for high school. In the beginning, I found them to be very teacher intensive, but as I've taught the same grades over and over and become more familiar with them, it's not so bad. But, I think they are still pretty hands on. They are really designed for school room settings. But, you can adapt it to what works for you, like everything else. What subjects were you thinking about using? I've used the reading, math, and science. We've enjoyed all of them. We still use the reading and will continue until 7th grade at which point we switch to literature. I don't really have any experience above elementary age b/c we decided to go a different route for middle school, but we will eventually come back for high school. I will say that the math did not work well for my son. When it hit fractions, it was a nightmare. I don't think it was BJU though. He has always struggled with math and we just needed to go to MUS. I always try to combine as much as possible so I just put everyone in MUS. So, I only have 5th grade math experience with BJU. Overall, i think their material is very good. I haven't used a lot of it b/c we use our own history, writing, and lit., but what i"ve used has been very good for our family. I think you can make it work with two kids. I started having trouble wtih three kids and a toddler. So,I think it would be very doable for you! Good luck!:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thowell Posted February 4, 2012 Author Share Posted February 4, 2012 So how much time per day do you thinking required for the 4th grade teaching? I am thinking of using BJU for everything except Math. Dd8 uses CLE and loves it and dd11 uses Systematic Math and tolerates it which is about the best I can expect from her and math. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 Absolutely. People were using BJUP materials long before the video technology existed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thowell Posted February 4, 2012 Author Share Posted February 4, 2012 Absolutely. People were using BJUP materials long before the video technology existed. Good to know. As you can see I am all over the place on which direction to go. I need more structure, more independence without the quality of education suffering. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thowell Posted February 4, 2012 Author Share Posted February 4, 2012 It depends on the child I suppose.Dd is doing 4th grade science now. She is working mostly independent. Once a week we meet each other for science. One week we do in the meeting all the hands on and demonstration stuff, the other week we work together on making the outline, and prepare the test together. That works fine here. For science we only do the lessons marked with a * in the TM, so we have a semestercourse science spread about a year (which is common here). Last year we also used G&W from BJU. The Grammar chapters she could make on her own, but she needed a lot of guidance at the writing chapters. We skipped all the fun stuff at G&W just teaching the topic and practice it. Dd likes to come to the essence ;) If you can make time per subject to give a short introduction I think you can do this on your own. I don't make bulletinboards etc. I didn't use other subject from BJU. Ok, that is encouraging. This is what I was thinking of. I know there is alot of extra that can be added with BJU but I was hoping on the busy days I could just have kiddos read and answer text questions or do a notebook page. Dd8 is actually more of an independent learner than dd11 is so this may work fine. Another question. I notice for alot of the course I don't see just an answer key. They seem to be in the TM which is the most expensive. Is this the only place to get just the answers? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 Good to know. As you can see I am all over the place on which direction to go. I need more structure, more independence without the quality of education suffering. What about enrolling with CLASS? You'd get all your books in one fell swoop, and a schedule, and the whole thing. Maybe for a year it would be good for you. :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thowell Posted February 4, 2012 Author Share Posted February 4, 2012 What about enrolling with CLASS? You'd get all your books in one fell swoop, and a schedule, and the whole thing. Maybe for a year it would be good for you. :-) I will look into this more. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TracyR Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 Of course you can use BJU independently. When I first started homeschooling that's all I could afford. They had Homesat back then. But I couldn't afford it. We did just fine with what we had. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NCJessieRN Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 What is CLASS? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 What is CLASS? CLASS--Christian Liberty Academy School System :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Down_the_Rabbit_Hole Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 I used BJU for many years and this is what I learned:The 7th grader, yes. The 4th grader, no. The elementary curriculum is very teacher intensive. The workbooks are just extra work. The real work happens in the discussions and hands on work guided by the teacher's manual. What I mean in my response is you need the teacher manuals...not the videos for elementary grades. This curriculum does not need a DVD or online teacher. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zebra Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 I am using the 3rd grade BJU W&G and Science this year. I love BJU, and I think it's fairly independant. I just give dd the worksheet to do for W&G every day. I think they explain things pretty well on the worksheet. She does need more help with the writing chapters, but even then it's not every lesson during the writing chapters. Honestly, they break the writing process down so much it's fairly independant too. For the science, I assign pages for her to read, and there is usually a worksheet to do. I have her write down and define all the vocab she comes across in a notebook, while she is reading. The only thing I have to help her with is the experiments. I think there is like 1 experiment for every chapter. I don't have a TM or an answer key or anything. The worksheets this year literally say on them. "page 123-126" so you know exactly what pages to read. I got the TM for W&G from CLP. I just bought the 4th grade W&G BJU TM(very cheaply!) for next year, and I can't honestly understand why you would spend $50 to get the real TM instead of $5 to get the CLP one. The CLP one is pretty much just the answers, but I don't know what else you need at this age. I guess if your child doesn't understand something, and you need another way to explain it? It looks to me like there is a lesson that explains everything that's on the worksheet, with different examples. But, I haven't used it so maybe I am missing something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiddenJewel Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 My experience is that BJU elementary needs quite a bit of teacher involvement. Junior and senior high can be done independently with the teacher available if help is needed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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