Switching from The Good and The Beautiful to BJUpress

I’ve shared my thoughts on how we are liking BJUpress already, so you can see that post here. I will still also do a more complete review after we have used the curriculum for a while. For now, I just want to go over how it was switching curricula and why we ultimately decided on this switch. I have covered this a little in previous posts, but I want to expand on our decisions and why BJUpress is what we ended up deciding on.

My main reason for switching was that I was trying to school multiple children and felt like I didn’t have enough time in the day to do a sit-down parent-led curriculum. BJUpress offers video lessons that take the pressure off the parent to sit down and read material to children. While I still have to be very hands-on and grade stuff, this allows me to focus on my other children or other tasks and makes the day a little easier. So we were going from TGTB, which is all books, combined lessons (the language course is also art and geogrpahy as well plus the reading/phonics aspect) and BJUpress has separate subjects for everything rounding us out at 6 subjects (science/heritage, math, english, reading, spelling, and handwriting) where as TGTB was 2 subjects with reading booster cards and a handwriting book. Surprisingly, this takes about the same amount of time, despite the short lessons with TGTB, we were spending an hour to an hour and a half maybe doing lessons. With BJUpress, we are spending about 2 hours, though the bulk of that is the reading course, as they do silent independent reading with the course.

With the switch, I have kept my middle child on TGTB curriculum for kindergarten because we do love it, and she is 4, so I did not want to do video lessons with her just yet. She is working on the kindergarten course, but I am not sure she is going to finish, and I don’t feel a rush to finish this since she is 4 and technically preschool age, not kindergarten age.

So far, the switch has been alright, though getting set up and into a flow was admittedly a challenge, and we have put off a few of the extra things while we do so. I do not use the video lessons for handwriting or spelling because I think that’s dumb and adds more to the workday. I also don’t do the videos when it comes to the tests because I also think that is dumb. It would take longer for her to do these things with the video rather than just sitting down and doing them with minimal instructions from me. I had also moved her up from 1st-grade reading and English to 2nd grade because she was showing signs of boredom in the 1st-grade course. I felt that this was a good fit for her.

She also ended up taking the chapter 2 test for her math class and skipping a chapter because she was extremely bored with the review they were doing, which was super easy to do with their online hub and scheduling system they have with their course. I simply marked off that we had done those lessons, because it is stuff she has previously done in kindergarten and knew how to do, and then rescheduled to line it up with our current progress.

My main problem that I am having (surprisingly) is that TGTB was so comprehensive that I feel like she is slightly ahead in almost all areas of schooling. I honestly think I could have gotten her the second-grade course, and she would have been fine, especially with the amount of review that they do in the course. Which is fine, I know some people take long breaks between school. But my kids insist on doing schoolwork daily, so the review is a little redundant for us, especially in areas they enjoy, such as reading and English.

Overall, we are really enjoying BJUpress, and I have always wanted a solid curriculum so that I can keep records of what we are doing. I live in Iowa, so thankfully, if you have not been in the public school system at all, homeschooling is super easy. Things do change if you pull your child out or dual enroll, but you can also easily find answers to your questions on the HSLDA website, the Homeschool Iowa Facebook page and website, and the Iowa Homeschool Group on Facebook. If you are outside of Iowa, I would check HSLDA or Facebook for groups for your state. HSLDA and Homeschool Iowa are religion-based, though, so if you are looking for something secular, you would have to ask a local Facebook group, but I’m not sure off the top of my head if there are secular-based homeschool organizations.

I can do a more in-depth post later on how we got started homeschooling, how I keep records, and what my state entails for homeschooling as of 2025.

So far, I can see BJUpress working for us long term, and I would certainly recommend it if you don’t mind the price point ($1,120 per grade) and slightly more rigorous course compared to something like TGTB (although this doesn’t mean that kids don’t learn with something like TGTB, because clearly it worked for my children). The video lessons help take the load off with multiple kids, but are also fairly customizable, and you don’t have to use the videos if you have the teacher’s text as well. Which I do believe comes with the video lessons, but don’t quote me on that, as I don’t use them. Also, if you were looking into Abeka or wanting to switch from Abeka, I would look into BJUpress. People often say they are about the same, but BJUpress is slightly cheaper and less intense for younger students. My girl really does like the lessons; the worksheets get to be a bit redundant for her, but that’s about it. There are a lot, and you don’t have to do them all.

Hopefully, this helped. Switching from TGTB was quite the change, and I was worried, but it went really smoothly, and she wasn’t behind at all. If TGTB works for you, I still highly recommend it, and it is not at all lacking in academics. BJUpress is also offered through an online academy and in-person Christian schools as well, so the educational standard is there; however, the home version is simply not accredited (but still the same material), so compared to TGTB, it’s clear that TGTB is a very well-rounded and affordable curriculum.