How I Organize BJU Press Homeschool Materials

[@meghankristinasnyder4936]

I have been so confused by this curriculum and your video put all the pieces together! Thank you soooo much for making all the resources that you do!

[@meghankristinasnyder4936]

Follow up question I cant find the answer keys are they usually a seperate packet shipped?

[@amyharrellsmith]

Thank you so much for watching and letting me know it helped you!!! ❤️ Two questions to answer your question: (1) Did you buy a full kit? And/or (2) Are you using 5th grade or higher via online? If (1) for under 5th grade, the Test Answer Keys are their own packet, usually with a blue cover sheet on top. If you received the Test packet and not the AK, check your packing slip to see if it’s ok backorder. Otherwise, you can reach out to BJU support for the missing item. If (2), then the tests and answer keys are all online in the Homeschool Hub for you! They’re embedded as links in the applicable lesson, & sometimes they are also found in the Course Resources section of a specific Course. I hope this helps! Thanks again!

[@vw658]

Thank you! ❤

[@amyharrellsmith]

Thank you for watching!

[@MamaBear-m7o]

Thank you so so much! I'm doing second grade and kindergarten, and this is exactly what I needed to help organize my BJU press curriculum. I hope you will make more videos 😊

[@amyharrellsmith]

Thanks for watching! I hope you’ll feel free to explore my other videos here on this channel. I do have a second video that talks about long-term storage, and I also have one BJU Unboxing video so far (10th grade with Science Kits). Glad to have you here!

[@AB-83]

Do you have a video on how you break up your subjects for the week? We are new to BJU and bought the whole grade package for each kid . i'm on the hub trying to figure out how many subjects they will have everyday to finish for the year. Example, would I schedule science and history every single day? Seems like a lot of material for one week.

[@amyharrellsmith]

Hi, thanks for the questions! I actually have a tool that would help you a ton with this. It's a year-long planner in Excel; I made it years ago & shared with some other BJU moms who loved it. You can play around with the schedule until you get it exactly how you like it (and even better, you can adjust it later once things change, because, let's be real, things will change). You can check it out at wiserhomeschool.com/lessonplans. For Science & Heritage Studies, it depends on which grade level you're in. If they are 90-day courses, those are half-year and aren't really intended to do both every day. So you can split them however you like: Do all of one, then switch and do all of the other; or do one chapter of one then switch to a chapter of the other; or switch every other day if you want that continuous exposure to both subjects throughout the year. It's really whichever way you feel best about! (We like to knock out one entirely and then switch to the other). Through the years, we have morphed into what I call an "Ultra Block Schedule," where we just load up on a couple of subjects at a time, knock them out, and then move onto another couple. My kids like gaining momentum in one or two subjects at a time. With you being new to BJU, I would probably recommend starting the way you are with a more traditional scheduling approach until you all get the hang of it. :) But I do talk a little bit about Ultra Block in my video, 9 Tips to Shorten Your School Day/Year, if you'd like to have it in mind for the future. I hope this is helpful! Thanks for watching!

[@AB-83]

@@amyharrellsmith thank you so much! I'm unboxing everything now and I'll have to figure out how many days the courses are. We started with parent LED Abeka, then tried Good and the beautiful (my kids hated it), went back to Abeka mid year and now we have settled on BJU. 🙏 Praying this works out. I realize with my ADHD I need videos to help explain things because I don't have the attention span for it. I have a third grader and 5th grader this year.

[@amyharrellsmith]

@@AB-83 Okay, gotcha. So most of the courses will be laid out for 180 days (full year). Just check the Science & Heritage Studies, because many of those are half year, but in the upper grades, they become full year. BJU can be very flexible if you know how to make it work for you. I think you'll love it!

[@melanieturner5665]

We use their fact reviews as 1 minute daily drills that we count as quiz grades. You could also use the fact drills over the summer as review. We do parent led and use spiral notebooks for them to write their answers in so we can save and reuse the work texts for the next child.

[@amyharrellsmith]

These are all great ideas! That’s a great tip for being able to reuse the worktexts. Thanks for sharing!

[@XochitlPuga]

Thank you so much for answering my questions on organization Amy! It’s given me ideas for my own kids. I love the filing system for the end of the year because I am starting to have too many binders taking up space 😅. I’m excited to organize now! And looking forward to your long term storage!

[@amyharrellsmith]

I’m so glad this helps! Thank you for asking the question so I knew what topic to speak to. ❤️

[@livingforduskhomeschool]

This was so helpful! Thank you so much!

[@amyharrellsmith]

That’s great to hear! Thank you for watching!

[@natesfiancee8038]

Thank you

[@amyharrellsmith]

Thanks for watching! Hope it was helpful.

[@christinarodriguez2451]

Hi, did you show the tool to remove the work text from the workbook?

[@amyharrellsmith]

Hi! Thanks for watching. I try not to take the worktexts apart, but when my kids were very young (K4, K5, 1st), I did pull the pages we needed each day & used an accordion folder to separate out each day. I show this folder around 21:00 on this video. Thanks again!