Author Archives: Mary Adalbert

The term “homeschooling” has evolved in leaps and bounds over the last few decades. Students who only had a couple curriculum options now have resources with hundreds of publishers and online options! The opportunities are endless. Now families can craft more individualized curriculum and instruction and parents have more options to find breaks in their teaching role. One of our favorite ways to help supplement your core curriculum and give your kids some more interactive classes is live, online classes.

Bridgeway Academy’s online learning labs accommodate children from all grade levels, academic histories, and educational backgrounds.  We work with homeschoolers by setting goals that complement the instruction they receive at home, and our online learning labs are varied and unique. We want to foster a love for learning in all students, helping them pursue passions in more than just the core subjects. Here is how we do that:

1. Learning Labs encourage creativity.  By allowing students the opportunity to think outside of the box, they will get to try a range of course material and be encouraged to complete many types of projects.

2. Learning Labs helps students get hand’s on with their learning. These online classes don’t just require tests and quizzes to measure a students success. Many classes have projects that the students will complete and share with the teacher and class.

3.  Learning Labs are interactive. Kids get to share their thoughts and ideas with teachers and students from around the United States and in some cases the world. This encourages the students to learn from each other, see their ideas from new perspectives, and find new and inventive solutions to problems that might have stumped them.

4. Learning Labs are engaging. None of the live teachers want students to just learn a bunch of information from a textbook. Instead, their interactive classes engage students in the learning process to help them understand and remember the content for a lifetime. When kids are ‘doing’ the learning instead of just trying to memorize facts, they tend to enjoy and remember much more in the future.

5. Learning Labs spur critical thinking. Instead of teachers just answering every single question. They probe and try to help students think through what they have learned so far and get the answers themselves. We want children to learn these critical thinking skills so that they can be prepared for anything in their future.

Curious to find out more?  Click here to check out our classes! You will find interactive classes for students in 1st-12th grade and ranging from Marine Biology and Archaeology to Amusement Park Experience and Chemistry and more!

Want to experience a free live class for your family?  Join us for our Learning Lab webinar on Monday November 30th at 1:30pm. Click here to register. 

When the last of the brilliant colored leaves have fallen in November, it’s time to set our sights on Thanksgiving.  Homeschooling families near and far are blessed with an abundance of crafts and projects to celebrate this warming holiday.  From handprint turkey cards to brown paper thankfulness trees, the options are varied and endless.
The following are our top five favorite Thanksgiving craft ideas and projects for homeschooling families.

1. Chalkboard Turkey Handprint Cards
Let there be handprint art!  As long as we have five fingers, there will always be craft ideas to put them to good use.  With one hand comes an infinite amount of possibilities.  The handprint card idea featured here is hassle-free, and leaves lots of room for the imagination.  Your little crafter will have plenty of space to create on whatever sized card you choose, and the cards can be used as gift cards, decorations for branches on a thankfulness tree, or thank you tags.  The idea with this particular craft is to use chalkboard paper as the base, rather than traditional white paper or construction paper.  The Pilgrim Handprint Project is another similar craft idea, and is pretty self-explanatory.

2. Thanksgiving Gratitude Box
What if you had a special box where everyone in your family secretly wrote down something that they are thankful for?  If your children are a little older, or if you’ve already made your share of handprint crafts, you might want to consider the Thanksgiving Gratitude Box.   Not only will this project give your students an outlet for creative expression, it is also an opportunity to teach your children about gratitude.  What a great time of year to help your family focus on a perspective of gratitude.

3. Gratitude Garland
There’s something magical about watching leaves catch the glow of sunlight on a long, homemade string.  For this Thanksgiving craft idea, you’ll first want to lace up your boots and head outdoors for some leaf collecting.  If you’re on the East coast, this is a real treat because you’re bound to find a mirage of vibrant colored leaves from a variety of native trees.  There are a host of books out there that offer in-depth leaf pressing instructions, but you can always do it the old fashioned way and just drop your leaves inside a dictionary or your favorite giant art book, and flatten them there for 24 hours.  You’ll need some decorative ribbon, markers, and a glue gun for this craft.  It’s recommended that for the best preservation of the leaves that you apply 1-2 coats of ModPodge to the sides after they’ve been pressed.

4. Thankfulness Tree
If you’re looking for Thanksgiving craft ideas that feature turkeys, there are hundreds to choose from online.  If you think that turkey crafts are for the birds, then this site has a ton of cute projects without turkeys to get you started.  If your family doesn’t have a ritual for demonstrating thankfulness, the Thankfulness Tree is a wonderful craft idea to get you started.  Not only is this a beautiful fall decoration whenever it’s finished, but the crafters who shared their pictures and instructions for this one all seem to agree that there is something special about stopping to write down the blessings in your life that contributes to their genuineness. So many times we let the business of the season overwhelm us and change our perspective. And this is an amazing idea to help everyone in your whole family take time to relax and focus on what really matters in life.  There are also some fun adaptions of the Thankfulness Tree found here.

5. Pumpkin Seed Corn Craft
If you’re family isn’t too keen on roasting pumpkin seeds to eat, try saving your carved Halloween pumpkin seeds for this fun Thanksgiving craft.  All you need to do is dye your pumpkin seeds using liquid watercolors, and then lay them out on wax paper to dry over night.  The following day, you simply draw or trace a corn cob out of yellow cardstock and then glue the pumpkin seeds onto it. The final stage involves cutting out your husks from brown paper bags and getting them crinkly and then gluing them to the back of the corn.

Want more ideas?  Subscribe to our blog to gain more helpful tips and ideas!

Everyone knows that little kids love music.  But did you know that preschoolers exposed to music benefit from increased math abilities, heightened appreciation for beauty, and higher SAT scores?  In fact, studies prove that children who receive music lessons as part of their curriculum have a 46% average increase in spatial IQ over their peers who receive no music education.  Pretty astonishing statistics right?  Music instruction can improve a child’s spatial intelligence, and it can also open their senses to new sights and sounds.

So how do you succeed integrating music into a preschool homeschool curriculum?  

1. Know what the goal is. For the most part, young children are not exposed to instruments in order to master them, but to gain experience knowledge of new ideas. While learning about music, they also learn to develop more meaningful relationships with their friends and siblings. In a preschool homeschool curriculum, you can begin to integrate music lessons soon after birth or within the child’s first year.
2. Realize that these beginning “lessons” do not have to be formal. In fact, at such young ages it is probably better to keep your music instruction as relaxed and open ended as possible.  Helping your child focus on the music with simple movement activities such as musical games, swaying, singing and dancing can encourage your child get involved early.
3. Immerse your child in a musical environment.  One of the greatest ways you can help your child love music and learn about musical instruments and concepts is by listening to music every day!  By immersing your little one in a musical environment you can build their creativity, and the sooner they they listen to different beats, rhythms, and sounds, the sooner you can teach them about each of those musical concepts in their lessons.
4. There is always something new to learn about integrating music into a preschool homeschool curriculum.  Research shows that from around age one to age nine, the mental structures associated with processing and understanding music are in the prime stages of development, making it especially important for parents to expose children in this age range to music.  So how can you come up with homeschool music lessons that are both educational and fun?  The following are just a few ideas.
5. Start each morning with a song or circle time.  Having a short circle time is a great way to help young kids transition from morning work or free time to their school work and is a great way to tie in themes, unit studies, and holidays into the day. For example, if you are preparing to teach a unit on friendship, you could begin your circle time with a short song about friends and families.
6. Find songs or create songs to teach concepts, such as the days of the week and months of the year.  These ideas work well, especially if your homeschool is less structured, does not have a calendar area, and doesn’t start with calendar time. You can talk about what the date and day of the week is each morning. To help the kids learn the order of the days of the week, you can sing a day of the week song, too.
7. Add instruments to your homeschooling day. This is one of the best ways to guarantee that students will learn about the different instruments from around the world.  You can show them that each instrument makes a different sound and you can spend time explaining what each one does, and then show them how to play it.
8. Let kids acquire some hands-on experience with the instruments themselves.  If you only have a few unique instruments, why not give each of your kids an instrument to play for a whole week or month?  Then you can have them switch and try something new. By giving them the time to experiment with different sounds and rhythms, they will gain a broader understanding of music and how to use it in their every day lives.

It’s not only a good idea integrating music into a preschool homeschool curriculum because of the statistics, but it’s also a fun way for your kids to learn. Most parents want to foster a love for learning in each of their children, and by starting musical lessons and appreciation early you are helping them to build skills to better enhance their future in the years to come.

As homeschoolers, one of our greatest challenges is deciding which courses to include in our curriculum.  For example, what is the best way to integrate music into our program? Do we purchase a music curriculum, join a choir or have our kids learn an instrument? And just how important are homeschool music lessons anyway?

Well, research indicates that integrating music into our children’s educational process has amazing results.  In fact, According to the Arete Music Academy, children who study music tend to have larger vocabularies and more advanced reading skills than their peers who do not participate in music lessons.  In addition, children who study a musical instrument are more likely to excel in all of their studies, work better in teams, have enhanced critical thinking skills, stay in school, and pursue further education.

Seems like a pretty important subject to make its way into a program! Do you agree?

And what’s great is that even if you don’t consider yourself musically gifted, you can still integrate music into your homeschool curriculum.  Looking to learn more about homeschool music lessons?

Here are just a couple of ideas for you you can make music an important part of your educational process.

1. Get your kids music lessons.  Playing a musical instrument can both develop and enhance language, coordination, and math skills.  It can also bolster your child’s social skills, as well as strengthen spatial-temporal reasoning abilities. Music is a wonderful gift to share and cultivating an appreciation of music can have lasting positive effects in our children. So if you have the opportunity get them involved in music lessons, do so.   In addition, you can buy toy musical instruments and even recycle materials that are useful for music making to get your kids involved in making music.
2. Add music appreciation classes to your day.  By nature, homeschool programs offer families an affordable music education option, and there are a number of fantastic resources that can make music appreciation doable for even a non-music lover.  A few popular favorites include Maestro Classics, and Zeezok’s Music Appreciation Curriculum.  Even parents who have never picked up an instrument can guide their child through both  curriculum options, be it with a violin lesson DVD or with a real music teacher.
3. Build a foundation for music appreciation by creating  an atmosphere that is simply filled with music. Choose from a wide selection of musical artists and allow your children to absorb the sounds of instruments from all over the world.  Introduce them to famous composers and allow them to ask questions about what they hear.  Classical Composers Monthly is a terrific resource for acquiring quick snippets on various composers and is known for being an easy way to teach kids about composers.  Another great resource is Those Amazing Musical Instruments Book & CD .
4. Make music a large part of your day every day. Teaching your children to appreciate music is best achieved by immersing them in it. Surround your kids with music by listening to music at home or in the car.  Some parents like to play their favorite CD’s or sing their favorite songs. Others love to take advantage of the opportunity to visit theatres and attend concerts.
5. Explore the connections in music and other areas of your child’s education.  For example, you might reference a particular type of music or composer from a period of history they are studying. Take a little time to have your child study the history and the composers life together, and then have your child listen to their musical compositions and the musical style of that time.

If you would like to try teaching yourself music or helping your child learn an instrument, try looking at the Piano is Easy series and Teach Yourself Piano Step by Step.  And if you would like to look at creating your own music appreciation course check out this link.

Want to learn more about other extra-curricular activities and electives?  Check out what Bridgeway offers families by clicking here or calling 800-863-1474.

Nervous about passing your AP exams?  Worry no longer. Take a look at these AP Hacks from Audrey Farrell, one of Bridgeway Academy’s AP students!  Here are her 4 AP hacks to help you review and prepare for the exams so you can succeed.

Get Review Books. Just like with the SAT and ACT, review books are incredibly useful when studying for AP exams. In fact, I think they are even more worthwhile for APs, since these exams are more content oriented than SAT’s and the books give a solid review of the material. Note that Passive AP classes probably won’t require a review book, but for active classes, it’s definitely a worthwhile investment. For my active classes, I read the review books cover to cover, and did at least two practice exams from each. Additionally, each page of those books is covered with notes, highlighting, sticky notes, etc.

When looking for a review book, use trusted brands like Barron’s and Princeton Review. I prefer Barron’s for most classes, because they are generally more challenging than the exams themselves. But I have a friend who swears by Princeton, claiming that they are more readable and more accurately represent the exams in practice. Regardless of which review book you get, try to take all of the practice exams it includes

Make a Study Schedule. Calendars are your best friend when studying for AP exams. Make a study calendar for all of your tests, including tests other than the AP exams. And make sure you STICK TO IT! I designed my study schedule based on the chapters in all my different review books, studying certain subjects on certain days of the week up to the exam. Here’s what my calendar looked like in April this year:

Of course, I was studying for four APs, the SAT, and preparing an All-State Band audition, so my month was a bit hectic. Hopefully your schedule doesn’t look quite this crazy. Whether you’re taking one AP exam or ten, a calendar is extremely useful and one of the most important AP hacks to keep you on track and well-paced. That way you don’t end up cramming the night before the test. I’ve also found that color coating things and organizing your calendar is a great way to get motivated before long nights of studying.

Don’t Freak Out. AP exams are stressful and hard, making it very easy to stress out in the days leading up to the test. Trust me. I know. Just try your hardest to stay calm when you’re studying for your exams. If you prepare well enough, and stick to a good study schedule, there is absolutely no reason to freak out about a test. I know too many people who got really nervous right before their exam, and choked, doing a lot worse than they could have. AP tests are scary. But it’s not the end of the world. Nothing terrible will happen if you get a 3 instead of a 4. In fact, nothing bad will happen if you get a 0 on an AP exam, because no high school or college will take bad scores of APs into account. They only consider good scores. So, in reality, nothing can go wrong. And the experience of taking AP courses will benefit you greatly in college.

Have a plan on test day. All but one of my exams this year were morning exams, and all of them are long and exhausting. But here are some specific AP hacks to help you endure such a long exam.

Wake up early. You won’t perform your best if you wake up 15 minutes before testing begins. On the day of any morning exam, I make it a general rule to be awake for at least two hours before testing starts. This might sound ridiculous, but if I don’t then I will feel drowsy and rushed, not doing as well as I could have.

Eat a normal breakfast. This means that you should eat breakfast, but you shouldn’t have the royal breakfast buffet of your dreams the day of an exam. Eat what you would eat on a regular day of school. You don’t want to go into a three hour test feeling full and gross from a huge pancake feast your mom made that morning. If you usually eat Raisin Bran for breakfast, eat Raisin Bran for breakfast.

Pack everything you need for the exam the night before. Spend a solid half hour or so packing a backpack with everything you need right after dinner the night before your test. Don’t do it before you go to bed when you’re nervous and tired, but pack after dinner, when you’re fully awake. This eliminates risk of forgetting anything essential the next morning.

Don’t cram the night before. This might seem counter-intuitive, but cramming right before an exam hurts you more than it helps. Anything I don’t know by then after months of studying can’t possibly be learned overnight, and it only makes me more nervous.

Go early to the exam. Make sure to use the bathroom before sitting down at your desk and bring a snack to eat during your break. I usually bring an apple and a granola bar to eat half way through each exam. Apples contain a lot of fructose, so they give you a burst of energy that will help you power through the last hour and a half of your exam, and granola bars will keep you from getting hungry, which is especially useful if you’re exam is running a bit late. No matter what you decide to bring, try to keep it healthy and energizing. Avoid foods that will make you sleepy, and foods that will fill you with more sugar than you can handle. I’ve seen a lot of kids eat candy bars during the breaks, and then get antsy in the second half of the exam.

Stretch after the exam. Leaving the exam room is one of the best feelings I have experienced in my high school career, and hopefully it feels good for you too. Take a moment once you’ve finished to stretch your legs and arms, and hands (especially if you took an exam with an essay portion – your hands will hurt).  Try not to consult other people about the questions on the test, and try not to worry about how you did at this point. It’s about two months until you can get your scores back for these tests, so it’s not worth the stress. Fun anecdote: I ran out of time on the essays for my AP biology exam and I hadn’t even read the last two questions. I was devastated as I left the exam room, but I still got a 5 on it.

Enjoy the freedom of a post-AP lifestyle, relish in your blank study calendar, and try not to fall behind in your regular school work (which I did 😛 ). AP courses are challenging and stressful, but also are some of the most rewarding classes you can take in high school, and they can really pay off in college. Have fun with your studying and good luck!

To learn more about Bridgeway’s AP courses, call us at 800-863-1474.

Whether you’re currently enrolled in an AP class, or deciding whether or not to take one at all, the fact remains that AP exams are scary. But, just like any other test, AP exams never test anything you can’t learn beforehand.
So this next series of AP Exam Hacks was written by Bridgeway’s very own student, Audrey Farrell, to help students pass their exams. Check out her top 5 AP hacks to help you better understand AP courses!

Know what kind of AP class you are taking.

From my experience, there are two types of AP classes: passive and active.

Passive AP Classes are classes that prepare you for the AP exam just by being in class. I also like to think of these classes as “osmotic APs”, where just showing up and staying attentive in class all year is enough to prepare you for the AP exam. English and foreign language classes are usually passive classes. Sure, you want to review some vocabulary or formulas beforehand so that you aren’t entering the exam cold. But most of the preparation for these exams happens just by taking the class in the first place.

Active AP Classes are just the opposite. Simply taking the class is not going to be enough if you want a 4 or 5 on these exams. Science, math, and history classes are usually active classes, where you’ll need to do some serious reviewing before the time comes to take the exam.
Understanding whether the AP class you are taking, or plan to take, is an active or passive class is extremely helpful when you begin preparing for the AP exams.

Pay Attention
I know this might seem obvious, but pay attention during the course! A lot of people I talked to when preparing for the exams this year were stressed out because they had been staring out the window all year when they should have been focusing, taking notes and learning the material. And now they have to cram a year’s worth of lessons into the space of a couple weeks. Don’t do that to yourself. Pay attention the first time you learn something, so you can have an easier time reviewing it later on. Remember that taking hand written notes tends to help your brain retain information. So taking vivid notes can help you pay attention and remember the information later.

Know how to prioritize study time.
If you’re like me, and have a bad habit of taking multiple AP classes at a time, you know how important prioritizing can be. Over the course of the year, you should be able to see which exams will take the most work. These are the classes that take the most time to complete classwork and study for tests. From there figure out which exam is going to require the most study time to perform well on, and study for that the most, even if it isn’t the most fun class. This actually brings me to the next tip!

Do whatever it takes!
When it comes to AP courses, they are not only hard, but can be absolutely boring! Come to class with the mindset of doing whatever it takes to get your studying done. And when you study for the exams try to learn the information in new ways so it’s not quite as tedious. I mean, it kind of seems obvious, but it’s a lot harder than it seems when it’s eleven o’clock at night, and you’ve still got fifty more pages of dry textbook reading before you’ve done all you need to for the day.

Here are some additional AP Exam hacks I found to study information in a new way. First, when I have trouble concentrating, I stop every half hour or so to do sit ups, jumping jacks, or go for a short walk around the block, just to get my mind refocused on the task at hand. Secondly, I’ve also found that a good music playlist always helps me get through a late night of studying extremely boring material. Lastly, color coding things, creating a well-organized sticky note system, and drawing mind maps helped me stay awake and focus. Basically, I did whatever it took to get that information from the book into my head. (I’ve even tried placing my head in direct contact with the book, but, alas, it did not seem to work that way. I just fell asleep).

Want even more tips and AP Exam hacks?  Stay tuned for the next article giving more tips for passing AP Courses!  If you would like more information about Bridgeway’s AP courses, know more or call us at 800-863-1474.

Are you ready for the SAT exam?

Now that you know some study tips that you can use to prepare for the SAT exam, we wanted to give more hacks dedicated to each section of the test. As you practice, keep these things in mind and you will breeze through the SAT and see improvements in your scores.

Ways to Prepare for the SAT:

Math:

1. Familiarize yourself with the types of questions. Generally, the SAT exam uses word problems, real life situations, and logic puzzles. They always ask a question or two about reading graphs or tables, and also introduce new mathematical concepts to see how you cope. Don’t get too stressed about this, just take time to practice.
2. Realize that the questions are arranged from easiest to hardest. The first few questions in each math section are going to be easy. Unbelievably easy. So easy, in fact, that many students begin to doubt their answers and waste time trying to find the trick or hidden meaning behind what is, essentially, an elementary math problem. Don’t worry if the first two or three questions have answers that came easily to you. However, if question 20 came easily to you, you probably made a mistake or misunderstood the question.
3. Know the tricks. The College Board knows what mistakes students will commonly make on math problems, so even if the answer you get is a choice, realize that that doesn’t mean you’ve gotten it right. Especially on problems involving a lot of arithmetic and calculator use, take your time and be cautious.
• Note- A correct answer on an easy question is worth the same amount as a correct answer on the hardest question on the test. Don’t spend all your time answering one difficult question when you could be answering five or ten easier questions.

Critical Reading:

1. Stay focused. One of the hardest aspects of this section, for me, was staying focused while trying to read what I believe to be the most boring pieces of writing ever conceived by man. It’s difficult, but staying focused helps to get the full picture of the assignment so you can more easily answer the questions.
2. Learn vocabulary words. Every critical reading section starts out with 6-8 questions that tests your vocabulary. That’s about 20 questions per test. Since all they test is how well you know the English language, vocabulary is the easiest way to improve your critical reading score. I learned my vocab by making flash cards. And I had a friend who input all the vocab words we learned into a flash card app on his phone to quiz himself in his spare moments throughout the day. We all learn things differently. Just make sure that you try to learn vocab, no matter what quirky method you must use.
3. Timed reading sessions. After vocab questions, every other question is about reading comprehension. My only suggestion here would be to time your reading sessions, write down the main idea of each paragraph as you read (to save you time rereading things), and underline/circle things in the text to remind yourself what the passage is saying when you’re answering the questions.

Writing:

1. Review grammar. The writing section ONLY tests grammar. Isn’t that lovely? Just remember, grammar is the easiest thing in the world to study, because you’ve been learning grammar every day since you were born. By talking to people, listening, reading, and writing, you are improving your grammar skills.
2. Practice. The College Board loves to test us on dangling modifiers, parallelism, pronoun usage, and verb agreement. Learn about those four things and you will be set to answer almost every single SAT writing question.
3. Read! One of the best ways to help visualize grammar is to read. Books, signs, newspapers, anything. Reading is a great thing you can do to improve grammar and vocabulary to build your SAT skill set.

The Essay:

1. Choose a side. The SAT graders only give good scores to essays that either agree or disagree with the opinion stated in the prompt. So you need to choose! Essays that point out the benefits and detriments of both sides of the argument, while harder to write and in my opinion more respectable, will not receive as high a score as more extreme viewpoints.
2. Don’t use personal experience as an example. The essay prompt will always say to use examples from history, reading, and personal experience, but the people reading your essay will always look for the first two. Why? People can lie about personal experience. You could very easily invent a person or story that perfectly supports your argument, or you could have actually experienced something that supports your argument. Either way, the reader is going to view the information as unreliable, because there is the possibility of it being a lie.
3. Indicate 2-3 examples that support your argument. This may seem difficult, but it’s actually really easy to prepare for the SAT beforehand. What I did was prepare a few books and historical events beforehand that could be applied to almost every prompt the SAT could throw at me. Here are some good books that are almost always useful in an SAT essay: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Animal Farm by George Orwell, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. As far as historical events, the civil rights movement, the trial of Galileo, the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution/Gilded Age, and the Colombian Exchange have always come in handy.
4. Remember that your essay will be read by humans. This is important to remember, because those people reading your essay might have very different views than you do. For this reason it’s best to avoid using current events as examples, and expressing extreme values that a lot of people disagree with. Try to stick with historical and literary examples that everyone tends to agrees on, rather than writing an emotionally charged essay that your readers might strongly disagree with or find offensive.

One final piece of advice, find a group of friends to study with you. This can be hard, I know, but having people to study with makes the act of studying feel a lot less like work and a lot more like hanging out with friends. Of course, if these friends are distracting you from your work, then it’s better to study alone, but if you can manage to find a group of motivated students such as yourself, who are willing and happy to take a few practice tests with you, or quiz you on vocab, or explain math concepts to you, that is amazing.

Overall, if you take timed practice tests to prepare for the SAT exam and learn from your mistakes, you should be on the way towards an SAT score you can be proud of. And if you need more help studying, check out Bridgeway’s SAT Prep Learning Lab!

Still have more questions or want more tips on how to prepare for the SAT exam? Contact us at 800-863-1474.

Guest Post by, Audrey Farrell ~”Audrey, one of Bridgeway’s Compass Learning students, aspires for success in all her schoolwork and hopes to get a degree in Mathematical and Theoretical Physics. As she studied for the SAT she learned many tips and tricks to share with other students to help them succeed. Enjoy these SAT hacks!“

Are you looking for tips on how to prepare for the SAT? We understand that SAT prep can be daunting, both because of the size of the test itself and the weight it bears in the college admissions process. But preparing for the exam is actually a lot simpler than it may seem now, once you learn where to start.

5 Ways to Prepare for the SAT:

1. Practice, Practice, Practice! The SAT is a standardized test. This means that it asks the same kinds of questions each year, so the best way to improve your score on the SAT is to become familiar with these types of questions through practice exams. The best resource, online or off, for studying for the SAT is the official SAT study guide that you can buy from the College Board. College Board, the makers of the SAT test, made sure the big blue book has a breakdown of the test, a review of all the material covered, and 10 practice tests, as well as practice problems throughout the review chapters. They want to make sure you have the tools you need to do your best when it’s test day.
2. Take Timed Exams. Most students could do well on the SAT if given unlimited time, so make sure to take the practice exams with the time constraint. This way you can get used to thinking under pressure, and not feeling stressed if you have to skip problems. Remember you can come back to those questions at the end if you have time.
3. Review Mistakes. Sadly, the blue book doesn’t have answer explanations for every question on the practice exams, but that doesn’t mean you can’t look back and try to figure out where you went wrong. I know better than most that after taking a practice exam, all you want to do is see your score and then forget about it. However, practice is meaningless if you don’t learn anything from your mistakes. There’s nothing wrong with getting a question wrong, but getting questions wrong for the same reason over and over again can be avoided by reviewing your work and learning from your mistakes.
4. Take the PSAT. The PSAT is like a condensed version of the SAT, because it has the same types of questions with the same level of difficulty as the full SAT exam. Although most students don’t study at all for the PSAT, doing well gives you great opportunities to prepare for the larger exam and earn scholarships or awards.  You can use the blue book to study for the PSAT, but it would also be helpful to take practice tests directly designed in PSAT format, which can be printed from the web, or found in several PSAT specific review books.
5. Study for the Essay. The PSAT does not include an essay-writing portion. However, much of your writing score on the SAT depends heavily on the essay and is of the most difficult parts of the exam for many students. Make sure to read the blue book’s overview of the essay to understand the structure and answers your graders will be looking for.

• Note: The SAT is not the place to write an innovative and eccentric essay. In fact, the essay is entirely formulaic and can be easily prepared for as long as you put enough time and effort into understanding the structure and writing practice essays.

Even though studying for the test can be intimidating, remember that the SAT is a very predictable test. As long as you try hard to practice and familiarize yourself with the way the test works, you’ll see a huge improvement in your performance.

If you would like more resources, check out Bridgeway’s Easy Essay or SAT Prep Live Classes here and learn how to prepare for the SAT effectively. And don’t forget to stay tuned for our next SAT hacks- Tips and Tricks for Each Test Section.

Guest Post by, Audrey Farrell ~”Audrey, one of Bridgeway’s Compass Learning students, aspires for success in all her schoolwork and hopes to get a degree in Mathematical and Theoretical Physics. As she studied for the SAT she learned many tips and tricks to share with other students to help them succeed. Enjoy these SAT hacks!”

It’s that time of year when homeschool families all over the world are rushing to get that last minute vacation, buy all their school supplies, purchase clothing for growing children, get the perfect individualized homeschool curriculum for each child, and make goals for the upcoming school year. Even though it can be stressful, it’s also an exciting time as homeschool families  celebrate the accomplishments of the previous year, enjoying dedicated time together, and looking forward to new experiences in learning.

But, how do you choose the perfect individualized homeschool curriculum for each child in your family? It begins by knowing what a quality homeschool program should include. So while you are researching homeschool programs for your children this year, keep this checklist handy!

A Top-Notch Program will have:

• Accreditation. Knowing that what you are doing will be fully recognized both now and in the future gives you the freedom to enjoy homeschooling.
• The ability to customize the individualized homeschool curriculum. Having the ability to tailor the curriculum between multiple publishers and resources gives your child the best advantage as you can pick and choose what work’s best for them.
• The option to ask for help. Working with an expert gives you peace of mind throughout the year, knowing that if you or your child may need help, someone will be there to assist.
• Professional Grades and Transcripts. Avoid the stress of wondering what records to keep, how to meet state laws, or whether your child is performing well. When you have a homeschool partner who takes care of this, you have more time to focus on your child and those creative ideas!
• Additional Resources. This is a MUST! Having more resources available at your fingertips helps your child learn information instead of just memorizing content for a quiz or test.
• No Limitations. As a homeschooling parent, you need full flexibility and control for when and where you want your children to study.

A Top-Notch Online Homeschool Program will have:

• The ability to review information or lessons as needed. This allows the student to independently choose the pace s/he needs to learn the content.
• The option to retake quizzes and assignments if needed. Giving students this option allows them to understand what was wrong and how to better study in the future.
• Quick feedback on all tests, quizzes, and papers.  How can you measure your child’s progress if you don’t get results quickly?  When your individualized homeschool curriculum online program provides results within 24 hours, you can adjust your schedule if your child needs more help.
• Extra resources!  Because every child is different, they will struggle in different areas. The best online programs cover all the bases in each lesson so that you don’t have to research additional assignments or projects to help your child learn.
• No limitations for when or where you do your schoolwork. You should be able to choose your child’s login times and have the ability to start your school day or year when it’s convenient for your family.
• A Top-Notch Blended Homeschool Program will have:Because blended programs offer a mixture of textbook courses and online courses, you will want all of the above! Blended learning will give you more ways to better customize an individualized program for your learner. And it will give your student a change in pace to help them focus.

Programs for Unschoolers will have:

• The ability to take any electives. Because you want your kids to learn topics that are interesting to them, this is a must! Electives are a great way to get more in-depth learning on specialized content like classical books, animals, marine life, etc.
• Freedom and Flexibility to take just a single course. Many homeschool programs require that you get all the major core classes. Make sure you have the freedom to only choose classes when you want them.
• Additional Resources. You never know what will spark your child’s attention. By having additional resources available, you can give them options to find more topics and ways to learn that catch their interest.

How do you know which homeschool program will be best option for your child?

Take a learning style assessment designed for your whole family!  Online programs tend to help Auditory learners, and Textbooks can be great for Visual Learners, but if your child is a Kinesthetic learner or enjoys changing subjects often, then it might be a good idea to look at blended learning.  Because no two kids are alike and many children have a mixture of all those learning styles, having detailed results from a learning style assessment will help you customize an education to each of your children to fulfill their greatest potential.

Still overwhelmed by the whole process? Don’t worry! We are here to help! Call us at 800-863-1474 to talk to one of our homeschooling specialists and ask any additional questions. Or feel free to comment below. We would love to help you find the perfect individualized homeschool curriculum program for your family.