Bob Jones Homeschool Curriculum
A growing number of modern parents are turning to homeschooling for their child’s education, keen to give their child the quality of teaching and level of attention that is simply not possible at the majority of public schools. Experienced homeschoolers say that their children are happier, more confident and more willing to learn than when they attended regular school.
The most important decision to be made by these parents before they embark upon their homeschooling adventure is to decide what curriculum they wish to use. This can be a difficult, confusing experience due to the numerous options available.
All homeschooling programs market themselves as the best, and for a newcomer to homeschooling, how do they know what route to take? The most useful thing to do is research–lots of it–and take advantage of the experience of seasoned homeschoolers, many of whom have tried and tested various programs and can give an unbiased opinion.
Bob jones homeschool curriculum is one of the best selling and most popular curriculums for homeschooling in the United States and comes highly recommended by distributors of biblically focused homeschooling solutions. Bob Jones Curriculum was set up in 1979 and continues to educate and engage homeschooled children from K5 through grade 12, providing student textbooks and teachers editions in every core subject and across all grade levels. So what is it about this program that has stood the test of time?
Users of bob jones homeschool highlight the following factors when recommending the curriculum to others:
1. A well rounded educational philosophy is at the heart of the curriculum. The emphasis is on helping the child to understand what he is being taught, instead of just memorizing the information. One way in which this is done is by encouraging critical thinking skills. Users praise the stories and narrations within the curriculum, which set it apart from many other types of homeschooling. As well as academic lessons, children learn fundamental life lessons, providing them with a rich sense of what is right and wrong and building strong, moral Christian characters who will hopefully grow into well rounded Christian adults.
2. The curriculum has an element of flexibility often absent from other homeschool programs. Guidance is provided to adapt lesson plans to suit each individual child, and there are specialized subjects available to increase the level and variety of study. Naturally, each child has different strengths and areas of interest; as the child gets older and moves through the program there are increasing opportunities for diversifying. This enables parents to tailor the curriculum to suit their own child (something rarely possible in a classroom-based learning environment). Bob jones homeschool has been created to suit the busy lifestyles of the modern family, making it easy to teach the curriculum when it suits the parent and the child. It can be worked around other commitments without having a detrimental effect on the child’s education.
3. The integration of Christian teaching has been done with careful consideration and attention to detail; every single subject is biblically integrated, not just regular, secular material with a story from the Bible slotted in at random. Bible verses are used appropriately, and all teachings center around the word of God. The biblical teaching is linked to real life applications, making the subjects easier for the child to relate to, more interesting and relevant to his own life and experiences. The Christian focus of the curriculum in no way detracts from the academic lessons.
4. The pace of the lessons is slower and more thorough than many other homeschool curriculums. Children are encouraged to spend as much time as they need looking through all the learning material, to make sure they are absorbing the information and that the important lessons are being learned. Instead of racing through modules and lessons as quickly as possible, Bob Jones promotes a more in-depth approach to learning and incorporates questioning and testing at regular intervals, which gives the parent valuable feedback on their child’s ongoing progress as well as the standard tests. This slower pace of learning is particularly beneficial for children who learn well through repetition, and gives them ample opportunity to retain the information. The results speak for themselves: the curriculum has very high standardized test scores.
The only possible conclusion is that Bob Jones is a fantastic, high quality curriculum for Christian children who are homeschooled. Users find it far more straightforward than many other homeschool curriculums and report that their children benefit in many ways, both academically and spiritually, from the consistent learning methods. The aim of education should be to equip a child with all the life skills that are going to give him the best chance of a happy, fulfilled, successful life. There seems to be no doubt that Bob Jones is one of the best ways for parents to achieve this aim.
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