Curriculum Review Comparing BJU Press and Abeka DVD Curriculum

hey guys today I wanted to do a comparison review with you of two different programs that I used this year with two of my children the first one is the Abeka distance actually the Becca Academy DVD program so Rebecca Academy DVD program and I want to compare that with the bju Press distance learning DVD program and so I just so you know for reference I used the fourth grade A Beka Academy DVD program I bought the complete program so all of the subjects for fourth grade we did not use math and we did not use the spelling but we did everything else on those DVD programs and then my second grader did the BJ you press distant learning heritage studies and science so those are the things that I was that I am using to compare these two programs I also watched the majority of the sample lessons on both of their websites for the elementary age so this kind of comparison is just for elementary kindergarten through it's great I didn't look at any of their junior high or high school stuff so I don't know about that I just know about the elementary ones for Rebecca Academy and BJ you press so the first thing that I want to do is to kind of talk about some of the things that are the same between both of them and so I have some notes here that have been to look at so I make sure I cover everything so both of these programs come in a DVD format meaning you get the DVD in your home to use in your computer or on your TV and something to be aware of is that you when you pay for the program you are paying to lease the DVDs you are not purchasing them to own that you are just leasing them for a year and then you have send the DVDs back that's the same from both Abeka and BJ you press however all of the materials are yours to keep so all the work books and textbooks are yours to keep so that's something that's the same with both of them also the DVDs are complete instruction so both the Abeka and the BJ you press all of the instructions that your children are going to need are going to be on the DVDs you do not have to do anything your kids pop this into the computer or into the TV and they are going to get all of the instructions the teachers are going to tell them exactly what assignments they need to do so for you as the parent all you need to do is kind of supervise make sure they're watching the DVDs grade the assignments grade the tests that kind of thing now something else that is the same with both of them that I was a little frustrated about was that you cannot skip lessons it's really difficult to skip ahead now the reason I got these two programs for my 4th grader and my 2nd grader is because I have just in a season of life right now that it is really hard I have seven kids for them I was homeschooling and it was just really hard to be able to give the time for the instruction that each of my kids needed while juggling a baby and a toddler and all that kind of stuff so I needed my kids to have all of these instruction done from somebody else I just could not do that this year and so that was a blessing when I was sick they could still be doing school however there are times when I thought this material they already know we should we really would like to skip ahead and what I found is when we skip some lessons I had my kids coming to me and say hey mom they said to pull out a worksheet that we were going to finish up I never did that worksheet or things like that and so they were a little confused so it was hard to skip lessons or kids kind of have to follow through and do each and every DVD a lesson with the programs now there are some things that are a little different between these two programs first of all is the cost so with a Becca Academy they really only have one option for the elementary grades where you purchase the whole year so you get second grade third grade fourth grade their whole program all of the books and the DVDs for the whole year you cannot just get language or just get math you get all the subjects all together where BJ you press you can buy them individually so you can buy the complete I could have bought in the complete 2nd grade curriculum but instead I was able to buy just the heritage studies and just the science because that's all my son needed this year and so that was really nice however a Becca Academy if you buy those you know if you're buying a whole year a Becca is going to be a lot cheaper BJ you press if you're buying the complete year is going to be more expensive and I found that BJ you press materials are just more expensive in general anyways so if you're me if you want the whole whole year together you want all the subjects then a Becca is going to be a lot cheaper if if you're looking for something that's more affordable BJ you press is going to be a little bit more expensive but it is nice CJ you press is great because you can purchase individual things now if you're purchasing the subjects individually it is a little pricier so I bought two subjects I got heritage studies and science and they were still cheaper than buying the full gear but if I was going to get three subjects with BJ you press it would have been about the same or not it's not even more than buying the whole all the subjects that whole grade level so I would say if you're going to get BJ you press and you only want you don't want to use all the subjects but you still want to use three of them you're probably it's going to be cheaper just to get the whole ear I mean everything and then just not use all the subjects so it is a little bit more pricey but it is nice that you can come to do all the cart and pick which subjects you want also they're a little different in because Abeka you're buying the whole program at one time on let me show you on one disc as you can see here this is lesson 15 and 16 so this disc has every single subject that your child is going to need to do on day 15 and day 16 all the subjects right here so they just put this one disc into the computer and they just work through Bible and then I don't know the real order but you know grammar and math and reading and spelling and science and all of that they just work through that on one disk when you're doing a DJ you you they come in subjects so this is heritage studies so for each day my son would pull up the heritage study could open it up he would pull out the disk that he needed and there's going to be several different lessons on this one disk this could be several lessons on this one disk and so he would do the lesson that he was on and then when it came time to do his science he would have to pull out another binder and do another one of these and do pull out the science discs so there's a lot of nothing to pull out a lot of different disks but again it's because they're separate you can purchase them separately so that's something different about both of those as well now I want to talk a little bit about the format of how these are set the lessons are actually set up because this is what I think sets them completely apart which makes a Becca and bgu pres completely different the format is different a Becca Academy so just for reference this one right here a Becca Academy it's set up like the classroom actually it is a classroom it is a teacher with real students teaching her class and they happen to record it now the nice thing is the teacher does address the students watching so she will say pay students watching you do this as well are students watching this is your turn to answer the question so she does include their kids watching but it is a classroom setting and so it worked well for my fourth graders she's kind of one of those perfect Polly type persons and she's good at following instruction she doesn't get distracted but real easily so it worked for her I know that if my son had been doing it back up he would not be paying attention to the teacher he would be watching you know the boys swinging his leg or fiddling with his pencil or wondering why the girls were wearing a particular hair bow in their hair so it would have been distracting he wouldn't do well in a normal classroom setting anyways so this this program is not would not have worked for him because it's a classroom setting and so the other thing with this is because it's across from settings there is a lot of wasted time the teacher is asking a question and if a student gets it wrong she asks another student if a student gets wrong she has another another student and your child might already have the right answer they're going to have to sit and wait she asked them to do different assignments you know okay we're going to work for a little bit on this section know doing this language activity if your child's finished it they're just going to be staring at the DVD watching the other students writing the answers out so there is some wasted time that I didn't really like that about the Abeka Academy program I didn't like that my child was really just sitting and watching other kids do busy work with she could have moved on because she was already done so I did not like that about this the one thing I really did like about Abeka Academy is that it was really good on reviewing things I felt like my daughter really didn't just she didn't just get a general concept but she knew that these facts she knew the grammar rules she knew the different geographical regions because they really were drilled into her lots of repetition lots of review so I did like that about a Becca but I didn't like that she really wasted a lot of time just watching other kids do things now in comparison BJ you press is not set up like a classroom it is kind of like watching Mister Rogers neighborhood and let me tell you what I mean by that the teacher there's background right so it's not a classroom there's backdrops and interesting things for your child to look at the teacher is talking directly to your child just like mr. Rogers says I'm mr. Rogers neighborhood and you know what mr. Rogers how they would even sometimes had that picture picture I think is what it was called and so your kids would get to see maybe mr. Rogers we have to look at the way crayons were made or something you take you into a factory BJ you press does that sometimes they use video they use pictures they use puppets they have different kind of things where they've active things out different concepts that are acted out their songs so there's a lot of things to get your child interested in what the teacher is teaching and I really really love that about BJ you press and I have a son who doesn't sit well he would do well in the classroom I was really worried that's why I only got here at his studies in science because I just didn't think he could sit in front of a TV for all of his subjects I figured he'd get to ESP but he actually enjoyed watching these actually to be honest we all enjoyed watching them myself included sometimes rude I would find that all of my kids had kind of left what they were supposed to be doing and we had all ended up watching my son's science and heritage study blessings because we really enjoyed them so much they were just so engaging so we really love that about BJ you press let me check my notes to make sure I'm getting everything oh the other thing about BJ you press is that there really is no wasted time the information that they're giving your child is important and when they want your child to do something like read a page in the book or do an activity the after trial to pause the program and then when your child is done to unpause it and then the video will continue and so I really like that if my son needed to take extra time he didn't feel brush like he was competing with other kids in the class and he had to rush through it but if he got it done quickly he just don't pause the program and moved on I really love that about BJ impressed as well a couple other things that I wanted to point out is with a back up it is very factual the kids they're given kids facts I don't know if this is how they are in all of their grade levels but in fourth grade and I'm guessing in most of elementary they're just given kids acts which is great I mean kids need facts especially in the elementary age they need facts and so I think to do a job giving kids facts helping them review them but something I loved about BJ you press is that they were teaching the kids the information but they were also helping them to think critically about the information and when I read this on I think it's on the website maybe and it said oh we help the kids think critically and begin how could a DVD help my kids think critically I don't okay oh yeah I really don't think so I was blown away they really do help their kids think critically for example they had a science lesson and they were learning about our son was learning about our dinosaurs and they wanted the kids to recognize that the Bible most likely mentions dinosaurs when they talk about behemoth in the Bible that they were talking that was probably a dinosaur but instead just telling the kids hey in the Bible it talks about a dinosaur his name was behemoth instead of giving them that information there was a worksheet that they had to work through to come to that conclusion themselves so they had to look up in the book of Joe in the Bible they had to read the verses and I help my son with that and they had some questions that he had to answer about what does it say about who be what behemoth was and and then at the end it said hey was there any other is there an animal today that fits that description and the answer would be no well what do you think behemoth might have been made and the answer was a dinosaur so it really helped the kids to think critically the other thing I love about BJ you pressed can you tell us what I like more I love the BJ you press really really integrated the Bible in to all of the lessons I love that back up is I mean this is a Christian curriculum so that's great but I felt like BJ you pressed did a great job of not only helping the kids think critically but helping them think critically from a biblical perspective so I really like that about a JD press so just kind of to wrap this up which one did I like the best I think you can probably tell it was BJ you press I really like the DVD program did I think abacus was terrible absolutely not a becket is a great curriculum and I think it was fit for a lot of kids and be great for a lot of kids will I be using Abeka DVDs again probably not I'm not going to say never because I've learned after 13 years of homeschooling never to say I'm never going to do something because I used to say I would never do DVD programs and Here I am I use them this past year so I doubt that I would probably use a backup DVD again I might use a backup materials just to teach my kids on my own because they do have some great materials but I don't think I'll use the DVD programs again will would I ever use BJ you press DVDs again absolutely actually next year I'm going to be using BJ you press not just for the two kids but probably for all four of my kids some of them will be doing the complete program all of the subjects and some of them will just be doing a few actually be using it with my seventh grader doing some of their BJ press DBS because we I was just blown away and really impressed with the material with the way that it was taught the engagement the critical thinking and the way they really tied the Bible into it I was really happy with the BJ you press DVDs so um if you are like me you're in a season where you need your kids to be getting their instruction from somebody other than you maybe you've got a lot of kids and you just can't do it all I mean that's kind of where I am or maybe you're like me you've been homeschooling for thirteen years and you're kind of getting a little burn out and you need to take a little break maybe you have to work from home or there's just other circumstances where you if you would really benefit from having your kids have some instruction and from somebody else where you don't have to do it a Becca Academy BJ a press great option there are also a lot of other online programs a lot of other programs that your child can do where you don't have to teach them I have a whole blog post with a ton of different options of online classes and DVD programs and things like that so I will link that down below if you want to know about other resources besides these two programs but these are a great option if you're looking for something and like I said I will be using BJ you press next year I look forward to sharing with you how that goes for us next year so I hope this video is helpful that was make sure to give it a thumbs up and as always if you would like more quick young reviews more encouragement and more practical helps from homeschooling then make sure to subscribe I'll talk to you later I'll see you in the next video

Channel: Janelle Knutson

Views: 27,384

Rating: 4.9271522 out of 5

Keywords: homeschool, homeschooling, curriculum, homeschool curriculum, curriculum review, bju press, bju press distance learning, abeka, abeka academy, homeschool curriculum review, bob jones university press, dvd curriculum, 2nd grade curriculum, 4th grade curriculum

Id: YD3jqLofuYM

Length: 19min 23sec (1163 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 08 2017