Math for Christian Schools

Bob Jones University Press

BJUP’s math program is designed to be taught from the Teacher’s Editions using manipulatives, activities, and interactive discussion. Teacher's Editions in the Homeschool Kits streamline the program for use at home. The curriculum does an excellent job of presenting concepts in a variety of ways to reach different learning styles. The student worktext is used for practice and reinforcement. Since much learning occurs through activity and discussion, workbook learning is a lesser part of each lesson; you cannot just give the student the workbook without first teaching the lesson.

In the third editions of this program (available for grades K5 through 4 as of October 2009), the lessons are scripted in the Teacher's Editions. They walk the teacher/parent through the lesson step by step with script for what the teacher is to say and do at each step. TE's include reduced reproductions of student workbook pages with answers overprinted.

The workbooks are colorful and appealingly illustrated. They include cumulative review and quizzes and the end of each chapter. Third edition programs each have a Reviews workbook with two pages per day of additional practice on: concepts taught in each day's lesson, concepts and skills from prior lessons, and math facts. An inexpensive Student Maniplulatives Packet adds elements for hands-on learning. Booklets of tests are sold separately as are their corresponding answer key booklets.

Third edition Teacher's Editions include a "Teacher's Toolkit" on CD-ROM. The CD's contain instructional pages as well as enrichment pages, reteaching pages, fact review, extended activies for students. Most of these used to be available in separate books that you could purchase for students depending upon whether they were advanced, average, or struggling. Having pages on the CD provides much greater flexibility since a student might struggle with one concept while easily grasping others. The CD also include calculator activities, teaching charts (visual aids), reproducibles for manipulatives not in the Student Manipulatives Packet, and the answer key for the Reviews book. (Note that BJUP also sells classroom-designed Teacher's Visual Packets for each level, but these are now available as smaller, printable pages on the Teacher's Toolkit CD for homeschool use.) In the Teacher's Edition, an introductory page for each chapter outlines lesson objectives for each of the lessons in the chapter, and it also has lists of all other resources needed for the lesson from the "Teacher's Toolkit" CD.

Homeschool Kits include the Teacher's Edition with the CD-ROM, the Student Workbook, Student Manipulatives Packet, Reviews, Tests, and Tests Answer Key.

K5 home school kit - third edition

BJUP’s K5 math program is designed to build a foundation for understanding math concepts. . Manipulatives (e.g., Unifix Cubes and counters) play an important role in introducing new concepts at this level. The Student Materials Packet provides manipulatives for the student, although the Teacher’s Edition offers suggestions for substitutes and make-it-yourself manipulatives.

The Home Teacher Packet contains essential teaching aids and worksheets used in the lessons. The Teaching Charts Flip Chart contains teaching charts. In addition to the student worktext, an optional activity book offers enrichment activities. The Math K5 Home School Kit includes all of the essential components. (Third edition is now available.)

Math 1 for Christian Schools, third edition

Homeschool Kit - $123, Unifix Cubes with instructions - $12.95; Clown Counters - $10.95

The first grade program teaches such concepts as place value, addition, subtraction, problem-solving, time, money, simple geometry, introduction of fractions, and interpreting simple graphs.

Manipulatives such as Unifix Cubes and counters play an important part in introducing new concepts, but these are not included in the Homeschool Kit. The Teacher’s Edition offers suggestions for substitute and make-it-yourself manipulatives.

Math 2 for Christian Schools, third edition

Homeschool Kit - $123

The second grade level still uses manipulatives as a primary teaching tool. It continues with place value, addition, and subtraction (up through three-digit numbers), while also introducing multiplication (single-digit multipliers) and division. Two-step word problems, problem solving with information from graphs, probability, money and measurement are among other topics covered.

Math 3 for Christian Schools, third edition

Homeschool Kit - $114

Math 3 covers multiplication and division, covering math facts through the "10s." Students master their multiplication/division facts this year. Math 3 also does quite a bit of work with fractions and decimals. Lots of word problems help develop application skills. Manipulatives are still used, but they are included in the Homeschool Kit

Math 4 for Christian Schools, third edition

Homeschool Kit - $price not available

Students continue to use manipulatives throughout this course as they study multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, geometry, time, measurement, graphs, (including coordinate graphs), metric measurements, and positive and negative numbers.

Second Editions

Courses for fifth and sixth grade are still second editions.

Spiral bound Teacher's Editions are the core of the program as described above. Student workbooks are for practice and review of lessons taught from the TE's. TE's do not include CD-ROMs. Homeschool Kits include Home Teacher's Edition, Home Teacher Packet, Student Text, Student Materials Packet, Tests, and Tests Answer Key.

In addition to the student workbook, there are separate student activity books for additional practice that are not included in the Home School Kits. A Reviews Activity Book is available for each grade. These provide cumulative review of both concepts and math facts. In addition, there are supplemental activity books for three different skill ability levels at each level for grades 5 and 6--Spread Your Wings is for the remedial student, Spring into Action is for the average student, and Stretch Your Mind challenges the advanced student. Each activity book has its own answer key. I think the remedial and advanced workbooks might be of interest, while the average student will have plenty of activity with the Reviews Activity Book. It is not necessary to purchase any activity books or to complete all pages in all of these resources.

Correlating and using all of the program components is more time consuming for the second editions than for the revised third editions.

Math 5 for Christian Schools, second edition

Homeschool Kit - $102.50

Centered around an aviation theme, this edition is designed with a balance of activity, practice, review, and thinking skills, focusing heavily on multiplication and division of fractions and decimals. It also includes an optional pre-algebra chapter. Strong points are excellent word problems and skills application. Students continue to do hands-on work with manipulatives from the student materials packet.

Whereas most other math programs for this grade level that are popular among homeschoolers (e.g., Saxon’s Math 65 or A Beka’s Arithmetic 5) are designed for students to do much of their work independently, this course still requires teacher presentation.

Math 6 for Christian Schools, second edition

Homeschool Kit - $102.50

Centered around the theme “Courage in Crisis,” this revised edition covers fractions, decimals, percent, ratio, probability, measurement, negative numbers, statistics, and use of both calculators and computers. Students continue to use manipulatives from the student materials packet that comes with the kit.

Review updated October 2009.