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BJU PRESS DISTANCE LEARNING ONLINE // What's it REALLY like??
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Jun 19, 2024
Are you curious about what it looks like to use BJU Press Distance Learning Online in your homeschool? If you’re looking for a traditional, comprehensive, Biblical Worldview foundation curriculum, this might be the perfect fit. We've used it for the past 3 years, and today I’m going to show you what it looks like from both the student and parent side, why you might love it, and how we have used it in our homeschool. Have any questions about BJU Press homeschool curriculum? Leave a comment below! RESOURCES FROM THIS VIDEO 📖 BJU Press Curriculum – https://www.bjupresshomeschooling.com/site/include.php?id=88 BLOG POSTS (learn even MORE about BJU Press Homeschool): https://blessedhomeschool.com/bju-press-homeschool-curriculum/ https://blessedhomeschool.com/bju-homeschool-online/ https://blessedhomeschool.com/how-to-organize-bju-homeschool-curriculum/ ********************************************* Hey there! I’m Sara, and I’m a teacher-turned-homeschooling mom to 4 kiddos (including a set of twins!). I balance homeschooling while working full-time from home, and am so thankful you are here. I love sharing about homeschooling on my blog, Blessed Homeschool, where you’ll find tips, resources, and curriculum reviews. Whether you are a newbie or a veteran, I hope you will leave inspired and equipped with what you find. MORE VIDEOS YOU MIGHT LIKE
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Are you curious about what it looks like to use BJU Press Distance Learning Online in
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your homeschool? If you're looking for a traditional, comprehensive, biblical worldview foundation curriculum
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this might be the perfect fit. Today, I'm going to show you what it looks like from both the student side and the parent
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side and how we use it in our homeschool
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Thank you so much for joining me on my channel, The Less Homeschool. I'm Sarah, and I'd love for you to check out my other videos where I share curriculum
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reviews and homeschool encouragement. So go ahead and hit that subscribe button below so you don't miss out on any future content
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Okay, so we've used BJU Press for the past three years, specifically the distance learning
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online option for some subjects, and we've used textbooks for other subjects
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But a lot of people are curious about how it works and what they might expect from a
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curriculum like this. For this video, I'm just going to be talking about the DLO
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So you can see how it works and how BJU Press has some amazing tools in place to help you
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keep your homeschool organized and just easy to keep track of. Now, BJU Press is a pretty traditional option as far as homeschool curriculums go
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And I might lose some of you right there if that's not your preference of homeschooling
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style, and that's okay. But I want to encourage you, if you do like a more traditional homeschooling style, that's okay
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You know, I don't think you need to be ashamed if you'd like to teach your kids with a more traditional method
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I think that's sometimes frowned upon in the homeschooling world. You know, don't let your homeschool look like school
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But you know what? If you like a more traditional method, your kids are learning, they're happy, and you've
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got the second breakfast thing down, I think you're doing okay. So this curriculum was a great fit for us the past couple of years
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We hadn't done any kind of computer work or online learning yet
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So I thought, not only would this benefit my kids and help them learn some new relevant
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skills, but it would allow me to spend time with my newborn I had at the time and work
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from home while they worked on lessons independently. So when I started researching and learning about BJE Press, I love seeing a Christian
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worldview woven into their curriculum and their belief that the Bible is not just a
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separate curriculum, but that God is living and active in all that we study
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I was also impressed by their belief that we need to help our children think critically
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about what they're learning so they actually know how to use what they're learning
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These things, along with the personal recommendations from a few friends, led me to bite the bullet
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and try BJE Press homeschool. So you have a few options if you go to order the curriculum
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You can order the teacher's manuals and teach the lessons yourself, or you can utilize their
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DVDs or the distance learning online DLO options. The great thing is you can mix and match these options
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So if you love teaching science, you might purchase the teacher manual for science, but
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you might choose the DVDs for math so you don't have to teach it. Our first year, completely for the sake of ease, I decided to purchase the full grade
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level packs with the DLO option. This meant that my kids had access to all their lessons online and they also came with
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work texts or workbooks that they use for their assignments. The second year we used BJE Press, they came out with the homeschool hub, which is a free
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online platform the company developed to help you manage your homeschool easily all in one place
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So anyone who purchases the BJU homeschool curriculum has access to the homeschool hub
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and it's an amazing resource. It's basically what you're going to use each day to access a calendar for your lessons
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rearrange your lesson schedule, check your kids' work, and assign grades if you want
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or need to. You can even keep track of your homeschool hours if you're required by law to do that
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Let me show you what the homeschool hub looks like from my end when I log in
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We're nearing the end of our school year here, but you'll see examples of some of the classes
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that we're finishing up. Note that I did not have to plug in any of the information you're going to see myself
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The curriculum you purchase is fully integrated into the homeschool hub. So once you set up your school year, all of your information for your classes gets plugged
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in for you. So what I really love about the BJU Press homeschool hub is how easy it makes it for
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me to keep track of my kids' schedule, see what lessons they need to do each day, reschedule
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things as needed, and grade their assignments. Right here, when I log in, this is one of my daughter's pages
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You can easily transfer between students from the drop-down menu. We did more subjects than just reading and English this year, but we're nearing the end
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of our school year, so that's kind of all you're seeing right now
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This was the previous week. This is showing it's Saturday today. These are the assignments she completed Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday
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It shows me with this green label which ones are ready to be graded
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And then it also shows me that she didn't complete these two all the way on Friday
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and the little bubble pops up that shows that they are late. I can change the view to either see by month or even day by day if I wanted to
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Typically, I like to use the week view. It just makes it easier for me to see
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I want to show you guys, we're actually taking a day off on Monday because of Memorial Day
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If I want to schedule some time off, it's really easy to do
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I'm going to create an event. You can change the color if you wanted to
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I'm going to assign it to all my kids, so I don't have to do this a separate time for
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each child. It's going to start and end on the 29th, and I want to shift all my lessons over
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If I click save, and you can see that it popped up Memorial Day, no school, and then it just
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shifted all of my lessons over. That is a really easy way to be able to reschedule your school day or your assignments
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If I want to reschedule, let's say just this English lesson, or let's say I go back to
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this week and I want to shift all of this over since she didn't complete it on Friday
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I can click on the lesson, and all these different things pop up
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I can either look at the lesson, I can skip it, I can skip it and replace it with the
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next lesson. I can mark it as complete or just move it to the next day
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I like to use this reschedule option. It'll let me select a new day
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Since I marked that as a day off, it's going to go right to this next day
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Then I'm going to move all of the other lessons after it too
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If I were to just move it to the next day, it would double up the lessons so she would
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have two reading assignments that day. I would do that and then I can go ahead and do this for this class as well
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It's just another option. I could create another event, kind of like I did for Memorial Day, and then just assign
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it that event to Emma instead of all students. Just a couple options there for rescheduling
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Finally, another tool that I really love about Homeschool Hub is this assignments tool
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If I click on it, it shows me what assignments have been completed and need to be graded
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If you do grading in your homeschool and you need to print out a report or you want to
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keep track of their grades, this is super helpful. For Emma, she completed fourth grade this year
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She was working on fourth grade materials. Her tests and everything were printed
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We got those in a printed file. She completed them on paper
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Whenever it's ready to be graded, I can just come here. She marks it complete
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It tells me the date that she completed it. It was a test or worksheet
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It gives me the answer key right here. I can click on the answer key to see the key and then I can mark right on this screen how
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many points she earned. I can even make changes if I wanted to change the points possible or anything like that
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I can do that all from this page. That is super helpful
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My son, who did fifth grade this year, a lot of his tests were actually online
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He completed them online. Some of them were auto-graded. All I had to do is just go in and review and submit the grade, make sure I didn't want
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to change anything and that everything looked okay. From a homeschool parent standpoint, this is a really helpful resource to have to keep
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track of assignments, reschedule your calendar as needed, and keep track of grades in your homeschool
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I also wanted to go back in our calendar a little bit to show you how I've used it this
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year to help us keep track of some non-BJU Press tasks or subjects
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If you see on here, this was back in February, but just to give you an example, I actually
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added a couple of courses. One for our first form Latin that we're doing through our co-op
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I also added things on here like violin practice, Iwana homework, BSF lessons, things like that
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You can create your own custom courses and those will show up on your calendar
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That way your kids have a checklist and they can see what they need to complete that day
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If I go to that lesson, it just shows if I can write in whatever assignment I want to
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I kept it really simple, so just their workbook. They can check it off as they go
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That way they can really see what they need to complete that day
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Then it'll also show up if I want to grade an extra assignment, it'll show up on my assignments
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tab and things like that as well. The only thing I don't love right now about this option is if you have multiple kids that
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are taking the same custom course, there's not a way to assign that to multiple kids
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at once. All my kids are doing Latin, but I had to create a separate course within each student's
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calendar. That can get a little bit tedious if you're using it for this purpose
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Just keep that in mind. It is an option. You can decide if that's going to be the best way to use in your homeschool or if you want
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to use a different method for planning those out and assigning them to your kids
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You're also going to notice, or maybe you already noticed, when I click into a lesson
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you do have an option that you can enter the time spent on each of your lessons within
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this program. I will admit I have not used this. I really prefer Homeschool Hall and I use that for our homeschool hours tracking, which
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we're required to do by our state. I haven't used this feature
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I can't speak to it, but it is there if it's something that you think you might want to
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utilize along with the other Homeschool Hall, Homeschool Hub features. I also wanted to log in and show you what the Homeschool Hub looks like from a student standpoint
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I went ahead and logged in to my daughter's account. The first thing that she would see is her dashboard
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It gives her any lessons and assignments that are due for the day
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If you scroll down, it'll show any completed assignments, any future assignments, or anything
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that she has that is late. Mainly what I have my kids do is use their calendar, kind of like I like to use, so that
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they can view all of their lessons. Let's take a look at last week
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I'll click into one of her lessons. Basically what I have my kids do is they log into their Homeschool Hub, they view their
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calendar and they can see right away what they need to complete for the day
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If they click into a lesson, it's going to give them an overview
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You'll see the time tracking on here as well. If you want your kids to help you keep track of their own time for your records, they have
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the option to do that. You scroll down, it's going to give them their objectives that they're going to be learning
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in the lesson, any lesson materials that they might need. They're going to need their textbook, a work text, and a handout
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If we don't have the handout or it got misplaced, there is an option to print it right from
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the Hub. Looks like there is a video right away. They can watch it by clicking here or they can tab over to the video screen
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It'll also show you how long this video is. This one was just about 15 minutes and that's pretty typical
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Usually the videos are anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes. They do a great job with keeping the kids' attention
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My kids really like the videos. They often have a lot of different fun characters in them and things like that
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Let's see. In this video, if I put in any notes for them, I can add notes here
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I don't have any for this one and I typically haven't used this very much
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Once she watches the video, she just checks it to show that it's completed and then she
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would move on to her work text page. Once that's done, she checks it off and then she would go back to her calendar and move
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on to the next task. I really love the checklist option because it allows the kids to see exactly what they
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still need to complete for that day and when I log in on my account, I can see really easily
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what they still need to complete as well. My kids love that the BJU Press Homeschool Hub is easy to use and navigate on their own
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They're early risers. I don't know where they get that from and they like to be able to log in and get to
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work in the morning and have everything they need ready to go so they can do that with it
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Typically at the end of the day, I will sit with my kids one-on-one and go through their daily work, checking for completion, helping them fix any of the mistakes that they've made
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Some of their assignments require them to do things like read to me or review spelling
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and vocabulary words, so we'll do that either at the end of the day or while they're completing
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the assignment. So it's not completely hands-off for me. Also, it's worth noting that many of the video lessons are interactive, so my kids will often
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pause the video to work on problems, use manipulatives, or read part of a story
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They also have projects assigned to them and not just the word text pages, which I
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really like. And then finally, if you're wondering how planning goes, I usually spend an hour on
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Sunday afternoon to plan everything out for my kids for the upcoming week
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So I'll catch up on any grading I need to do. I'll note from the calendar and the homeschool hub what we need to catch up on, and I can
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rearrange the schedule as needed with just a few clicks of the button
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I'll also go through the lessons on the calendar for the upcoming week and skip anything I
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don't feel my kids need to do. For example, extra math review problems
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That way, everything is in their calendar exactly as they need it, and they don't have
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to wonder or ask me what they need to be working on each day. It's all there
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Okay, to summarize, here are the overall pros and cons, in my opinion, of using the BJU
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Press DLO curriculum. For the pros, it's easy to use. I love how easy it is for my kids to just log in and know what they need to be working
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on that day. It saves me so much time in having to plan out and schedule each week
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I also love the expert teachers. My kids really like the teachers they have for their distance learning
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The biblical worldview integration is also another big plus. Based on what we've seen over the years and what I know about BJU Press, I trust that
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they are intentional about teaching biblical worldview foundations in their courses. I love that this is student-paced
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Each of my kids could work at their own pace and at their own level
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My twins are sometimes weeks apart in some lessons because one might need more time than
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the other to master the content. It would be hard to manage this if I was working with them together on everything, trying to
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keep them together. It's very student-led, and I love that about this curriculum
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With the DLO, you also have portability. You can take your online lessons anywhere
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For example, when my son had piano lessons, my daughter could just bring her laptop and
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can work on her assignment or watch the video while she waits
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The DLO also has lessons. Any e-textbooks, assignments can be accessed from any device, including iPad, Android
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PC, and Mac. Grade tracking is another big plus. For any of the assignments that I want to grade, I can record them right in the system
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and then print it out at the end of the year. This might not be as important for the early years
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We don't do a ton of grading right now, but if you do have to track grades, it's super
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easy and it's great to have that little handout you can print to just stick in their homeschool
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portfolio at the end of the year. Another plus is skill building, just some basic digital literacy
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My kids picked up so many new skills when they started using this, including computer
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skills, also independent learning, and time management. The BJU Press curriculum definitely helped them do this
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Finally, I think using a curriculum like this is definitely helpful if you're working from
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home or you need extra time with a younger child or your kids are at different levels
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When my kids did their lessons, I had more time to dedicate to my littlest one and it
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worked out really well when I needed that. Okay, onto the cons. Are there any cons
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Well, one might be the price point. It is kind of on the pricey side
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If you're purchasing the entire curriculum, even just a single subject, it's not cheap
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It is comparable to similar curriculums though, and they do offer an interest-free payment
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plan, which is very helpful. In my opinion, it's very much worth it, worth the price that you pay for it
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Second part, I'm not going to say it's exactly a con, but there is still very much parent involvement
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So it wasn't as hands-off as I expected when we first started, although I did feel a little
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bit, but I did have a little bit more of my time back that I could work or that I could
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work with my younger one, but it was still very much hands-on for me in certain ways
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Well, I wasn't the one actively teaching the lessons. There's still a lot of work that went into reviewing the lessons and going over anything
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that needed reinforcement. I'm happy about that though, because I feel very much in tune with my kids are learning
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and very much a part of their day, even though I'm not the center of attention or teaching
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them the bulk of their curriculum. So I hope this gives you a better understanding of what you can expect if you choose BJU Press
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homeschool curriculum. I will say that the next year we are opting for a more family style curriculum again
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as my baby is not a baby anymore and a few other reasons, but not due to the fact that
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I don't love BJU Press and will most likely use their curriculum in the future
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Thanks so much for watching and please feel free to drop any questions or comments below
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You can find some links to BJU Press below as well. So you can head to their website and check out everything they have to offer for yourself
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Don't forget to hit that subscribe button and if you found this video helpful, please like and share
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I'll see you next time
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