Which is Beter Easy Peasy All in One Homeschool or Five in a Row

This is the sister site to Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool, which houses lessons for preschool through 8th.

Have you tried our new way to access lessons?

myepassignments.com

I'm Lee, the creator of the Easy Peasy homeschool curriculum. I'm the mother of six homeschooled children. I began putting my own children's assignments online in 2011 as a way to preserve them. I purposely wrote them in such a way that others would be able to use them as well. In 2012 I started letting others know about it. My hope is that these sites will enable families to homeschool no matter what their life situation.

The high school site is set up similar to the lower school. You will choose your course load. There are recommendations on the site for how to do that, and if you choose a level on My EP, then it will assign the typical courses for the grade level chosen.

In the sidebar menu on the site, you can find "other courses" and "parent submitted" courses. These pages can be reached by using "other courses" in the My EP electives course block. These are not courses created by EP. I haven't worked through them to check content. Some of them are in 180-day format, some aren't. Some have tests and answers; some do not. Organizations and EP users have shared as a way to help each other out.

You can read my response to the questions "Is it enough?" and "How can this be free?".

Please read the About, How To Use, and FAQ pages to learn more. If you still have questions, please ask the community on Facebook. (Click "Join Group.")

Homeschooling is not the answer. Now, to be clear, school is definitely not the answer! Easy Peasy's curriculum is not the answer. Neither is any other. This book, that method, this resource, that game, this strategy, that set-up. None of it is the answer to whatever the situations are that your family is facing.

We all love an easy-to-implement program. Can we all say Easy Peasy? We don't know how to fix our problems, so we rely on people who seem to have fixed theirs. The bad news is that no other person can figure it out for you and solve your problems. The great news is there is Someone who has all the answers.

Jesus is the answer. He's the answer to everything. Yes, everything! Why do we turn to blogs and friends and online searches and try this and that and the other for our dilemma of the hour when we have the perfect source for all wisdom and knowledge? It must mean we either don't have a relationship with Him or we don't know Him well enough to believe He will hear and answer our prayers.

How can you get a relationship with the source of all wisdom and knowledge?

God is the perfect everything. That's man's problem. We got ourselves separated from this perfect source by our sin, our selfishness, this dumb idea humans have that we know what's best for ourselves and that we should do as we please. It leads to every mess of a situation life brings to us.

To come to God, we have to humble ourselves and admit that we aren't God. Understatement of the century! We confess that we no longer want to try and control our lives, and we give our lives over to Him. We ask Him to forgive us for all our sin, all those things we do that hurt ourselves and others, and ask Him to come into our lives to be our Father, to teach us, take care of us, and show us the way to live.

He can forgive us because Jesus took the punishment for sin, which is death. Jesus, as God come down to us in the flesh, was the only sinless, perfect person ever; He was the only one who didn't have to die for His sin in order for justice to be done. That made Him able to take our death sentence for us, since He didn't need to die Himself. He sacrificed Himself for us. When we are forgiven, we can receive His life in us. He comes to us by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit makes His home in us, and we let Him live His life through us.

With His ever-presence, we have the source of not just wisdom and knowledge, but the source of all true love, joy, peace, faithfulness, and so much more goodness than you can imagine.

If you have made this step or find yourself in the other category of just not knowing God well enough to trust Him to be your help in everything, consider reaching out. I have tons of Bible teaching on the site. The study called This Is Eternal Life might be a good place for you to start.

This year's September Study will be released at the end of August. It's called The Suffering Servant. Find purpose and joy in the trials and tribulations! For September, we're all getting a free month of Mr. Phil TV, from Phil Vischer, creator of Veggie Tales. More on that when I release the September Study.

Good Morning, Lord! These are 2-minute teachings going straight through the Bible that you can read or listen to. There are more than 400 so far. You can find this on My EP. I was adding them to a playlist on Youtube, but I am thinking of not continuing that. If you really like having them as a playlist, you can ask me to keep adding them there.

Reminders from God's Word – These are video teachings from various Scriptures. Lots on freedom from sin and God's working salvation in our lives. This is a new page and I'm just adding as I have a new lesson I want to share. At the moment, I've been doing about four each week. There are just a couple dozen videos so far. This is NOT on My EP.

Miracle Stories – Be encouraged to trust God to provide and protect and be your Good Father! I will at some point add more stories. There are new ways God is teaching us to trust Him to take care of us. He's a good father!

I was thinking how no one was going to notice all the little things I did to get ready for Christmas morning. No one is going to recognize my thoughtfulness in wrapping the silly little things in their stockings so they have things to unwrap while they wait for grandparents to arrive and settle in on Christmas morning. They won't appreciate the organization and lists to make sure everyone has the same number of gifts so no one feels left out as we go round and open the gifts on Christmas morning. No one is going to say thanks for making sure Christmas Eve dinner is all planned so we can get to the Christmas Eve service. No one is going to stop and realize that everyone got their own favorite treats in their stocking, just that they are happy to get what was in their own. I doubt anyone will thank me for organizing the gifts so everyone can find theirs or that I planned the order of gifts for optimal happiness. 😊 They will just be happy. And that was the point, to make them happy, not to get the thank you.

I may not be wiping down the counters or the mirrors for the millionth time for their happiness, but just because it needs to be done, and I can do it. It makes me happy to keep the home in order and moving along, even if no one notices the multitude of little things that us moms (and dads) constantly do to keep life happy for our families. No one says thank you when groceries need to be put away. No one says thanks for getting the bills paid. Our kids live in a bit of ignorance when it comes to the many blessings they receive from having you as their mother or father or grandparent to take care of them.

I know it's easy to sigh and wonder why they can't keep their fingers off the mirrors, but it's also a joy to do it with a heart of gratitude. There's a verse in Proverbs that goes something like this: The stable is clean where there are no oxen. I'm thankful my home is full, even if that means there is always something to be wiped from the counters.

And it's a glimpse at the Father's heart. He sends the rain on the righteous and the unrighteous, meeting their basic needs. The sun rises to give us all light and heat each day. It sets to give us rest. Jesus healed even the ungrateful ones. It pleases the Father to care for His children. It pleases the Father to care for His creation, even when they don't recognize it. And it makes me wonder how many little things He does for me that I never even notice.

You know how good it feels when someone does notice and stops to say thanks. We should give that gift to our good Father. And when the bad stuff happens, when the problems pile up, instead of complaining as if God is laying down on the job, it should remind us of all the things we've neglected being thankful for, and we should rejoice. It should wake us up to thanksgiving and praise. Problems are temporary, but the love of our Father is for all eternity.

Thank you to everyone who has given donations to my family. I realized that I hadn't been sending thank you notes. I always write a thank you note to anyone who donates to the site, but because the donations to my family were mixed up with the registrations to My EP, those didn't get notes. I've gotten the system straightened out so that everyone gets a thank you note now. So, sorry if you weren't personally thanked, but we do receive all your gifts and we are grateful for your love and support. We don't have any paid work. Your donations are what the Lord is using to provide for our family.

I also wanted to say that there are three new books coming soon. I will hopefully have the links up by next week.

1. I have the next Good Morning, Lord! book ready. It's the lessons from the book of Exodus. Genesis is already available.
2. I wrote a very short choose-your-own adventure type book. Let's say it's for around ages 8 – 11. You are on a mission trip to build a greenhouse in a Roma community in the Republic of North Macedonia. My husband and I were church planters there years back. In the book are some of our color photos from our time there. It's called "Acknowledge Him in All Your Ways." You'll find the right path if you chose to trust God is in control and use His Word to guide you. 🙂
3. The big news is that I have a new novel ready. I wrote in back in January of 2021 and have been working on editing it, on and off all year. It's called The Trumpet and the Swan. I will tell you more about it at the release, but I will say that it is another end times story, but this one is set in modern day. It's not trying to predict anything because that would defeat the purpose. The point of the book is that you don't need to know everything, you just need to know Jesus. It's teaching having a relationship with Jesus, walking with Him. Hopefully it's just as engaging asThe King Will Make a Way.

Once I get all the work done to get these published, I will work on getting them on the site somewhere as well. The Good Morning lessons can be found here. The Trumpet and the Swanwill be available in hardcover.The King Will Make a Way is available in hardcover now!

We hold three competitions throughout the year: science, history, writing. Homeschool students age 8 – 17 can participate alone or in groups. Winners get a certificate in the mail and an award check!

In the fall, we run the science fair (running now through November 15th). Students conduct experiments and produce a slide presentation showing their procedure, data, and conclusions.

EP Science Fair

In the winter, we run a history video competition. Students choose a topic, maybe a person or event, and teach others about what they learned through their research by making a video of them acting the part or by developing a documentary-style video. We've even had some Lego animated videos.

EP History Alive!

In the spring, we run our short story contest, the most popular.

EP Short Story Contest

Toad Hunting

Lilies on the Mississippi

Last September I released a Bible study called, "This Is Eternal Life" and suggested taking the month as a focused time of prayer and Bible study. I decided to make it a tradition.

I've linked "September Studies" under Bible on the site if you want to find last year's. This year's is linked there as well. It's called "Be Ye Separate." It's a study on being consecrated, holy, set apart for God's purposes.

Instead of going through a book of the Bible, like how I used Matthew last year, it goes through various characters from the Bible and looks at how they were or were not set apart. I hope it's a blessing.

Our family has taken to calling September "Jesus month." We take a little more time for Bible study and prayer. Our schedule and activities look a little different for the month.

Maybe these studies should follow the Jewish calendar and run Elul 1 through Yom Kippur, but for now, September is the general time of the Fall Feasts, the Feasts we are waiting to be fulfilled by Christ's return, which make it a good month to choose to set apart to help us stay alert.

Although the course is called, "Be Ye Separate," the linked scriptures are mostly the NASB 1995 version. I just can't think of that phrase any other way. 🙂

The study has 31 lessons, one a day for the month of September plus a little bonus one.  You can add this to My EP by using one of the Bible blocks (there's another on the Extras page). The "Be Ye" course is at the end of the list, so just keep clicking Next Course to find it. You could use Parent-Add-On as well to get it on your lesson page. Moms (and dads and grandparents) feel free to make yourself a student page to follow this course.

Be Ye Separate

P.S. If this post looks all squishy and weird to you, you aren't alone. I can't seem to do anything about it. It's not how I wrote it. It's not how it looks on the editing page. I guess maybe something to be expected encouraging Jesus Month…Be praying for me and EP!

Last week I posted Part 1 of No-Regret Homeschooling. Last week and this week are things I've spoken about in interviews I've done but haven't gotten on the site before. Today's is about after we make the decision to homeschool and stepping into it.

Moving Forward with No Regrets

After we make the decision to homeschool, insecurities start to creep in. Yes, we love our children, but is that enough? I'm not a teacher. I don't get math. I am already busy. Won't it cost a lot to do it well? What if I can't do it? What if what I have to give my child isn't enough?

Here comes our next step towards no-regret homeschooling. We need to make a decision on how to approach homeschooling. We can't let panic force us into a wrong choice here. We need to choose with the confidence we built with our choice to homeschool in the first place.

The fear decision would be to imitate what the schools do, the fear being that your child will get behind and not learn what the kids in school are learning. This leads to desks in rows, thick overpriced textbooks, very expensive online schools, intensive all-day online programs, and other such stress-inducing options.

The fear is that what you offer your child might be somehow less than what they would get in school. But, remember, you've already decided that what they have to offer in school isn't what you want for your child. If school is what you wanted for your child, you'd send them there. If you've already decided not to send your child to school, why would you want to replicate it?

Then there is the self-doubt, looking at others and comparing them to yourself. These other homeschoolers have their stuff together. Their kids are so accomplished. The fear-based decision would be to just imitate them, hoping to replicate their children's success. While there's nothing wrong with gleaning wisdom from those who have gone before, there's a big problem with just doing what others are doing simply because you don't want to take responsibility for the decision yourself.

We have to deal with the underlying fear of the responsibility of educating your children. Educating your children is not separate from parenting them. We love them. We do our best to guide them. They ALL will make mistakes because we're all raising humans. One mistake, one bad decision has ruined some lives, but a loving family doesn't lose it at that point. A loving parent doesn't have their identity wrapped up in their children. Their children's success is a joy to them, and their failures aren't an embarrassment, but a place to reach out in love to help them back up and on their way. Regardless of whether your child goes to Harvard or community college or skips college altogether, what they do or don't do is not a reflection of your self-worth.

Love keeps no record of wrong doing. Love doesn't hold anything your child does against them. Love forgives. Love keeps its arms open. Love doesn't say, "After all I did for you…" Love says, "I would do it all again."

So, let's look at the flip side of deciding how we will approach homeschooling: the love-based decision. You love your child. You know your child best. You know your family. Your decision as to how you will approach homeschooling will be as unique as your child and your family.

I like to say that homeschooling is just an extension of parenting. You have been teaching your child their whole life. You taught them their first words. You taught them what a tree was. You taught them how to use utensils. You've been teaching them all along. Why should it stop now? You were made for this.

Each family has its own unique culture. Each family is made up of different people, so each family interacts in different ways. There are some general categories such as those families who run their lives by schedule and enjoy each day being the same, and those who like adventure and flying by the seat of their pants. Some families have movie nights, and some read aloud to each other. Some families are large and have lots of extended family nearby for lots of gatherings, and some are small and spend most of their time by themselves.

We like to categorize everything like that, but the truth is life isn't that neat and orderly. We're all a mix of lots of different things. And that mix in each of us as humans mixes with the mix in the other humans we live with, creating our family secret sauce that no one else has.

Your parenting is unique. No one else's home is just like yours. It can't be. It's made up of different people. You may have things in common with them, but you have different families. You have different traditions, customs, not just big things like holidays, but the day-to-day traditions and customs. Do you rise early without an alarm and open the kids' bedroom doors with a song on your lips to wake and ready them for the day? Do you drag out of bed on the fourth snooze after your kids are already up and cerealed and watching TV?

We all do things differently. My family sits down together for a homemade breakfast each morning, but lunchtime is a free-for-all-survival-style-every-man-for-himself experience. To each his own.

Our families are different. Our parenting is different. Each relationship is unique, so the parents' relationship with each child is different, even within the same family. People are unique. You are unique. Your kids are unique. Your family is unique. Your parenting is unique to you, and your homeschooling will be unique to you.

That's the point of all that. Be your own homeschoolers. Just like we don't want to look to the school and copy that, we don't want to look to others to copy them. They aren't you. They will never be you. Their kids are not yours. You don't want your kids to be their kids. You want your kids to be themselves. Let your kids be themselves and don't try to push them into someone else's mold.

I hope you can agree that you want your kids to be raised to be all they can be, not all that someone else has decided they should be, including you. Love your kids enough to want them to grow into who they were created to be, not your idea of who they should be.

We need to be clear on our love motivation. We can't let selfishness creep in and start looking at ourselves. We need to make sure we're free of those self-doubts and insecurities that say my kid's success in the eyes of the world determines my worth.

We need to homeschool out of love.Love is selfless.

We can homeschool without regret because our motivation is love andlove never fails.

Want to read more?

Here's the full pdf to download for FREE, No-Regret Homeschooling.

Below is the first part to a mini ebook I wrote on No-Regret Homeschooling. If you know someone waffling on the decision to homeschool, consider sharing this resource with them to encourage them.

Making the No-Regret Decision to Homeschool

This isn't going to be long because this doesn't have to be complicated. You are thinking about homeschooling, so you already have reasons to consider it. Or maybe you've already decided it's what you want to do, but aren't fully convinced it's what you should do. Many reasons that push families to homeschool are fear-based: fear over what they are teaching at schools, fear over how your child has been or might be treated, fear over violence, and now fear over disease spreading through schools.

I want to offer you a different perspective. Personally, I always want to avoid any fear-based decision. I don't want fear ruling my life. I want my life ruled by love instead. I want you to look at the decision to homeschool from the perspective opposite of fear– one of love.

Who loves your child more, you or the state? Homeschooling is a simple decision when you look at it from the perspective of love. No one loves your child more than you do. No one is going to care about your child more than you do.

Yes, there are awesome teachers out there that care about their students and are experts in their field, but they can't ever care about your child the way you do. No matter how dedicated they are, they can't tailor their day and their curriculum to fit your child. They can't know your child the way you do.

You, however, even if you have multiple children and other demands, are more equipped to adapt and mold your child's education in the way that's best for them.

Curriculum standards are one-size-fits-all, but we know each child is different. Each human is unique, even identical twins. School could never give them the love and care that you can.

If you decide to homeschool out of love, then you will not fail your child.Love never fails. That's a timeless truth. If you are homeschooling out of fear, you could fail. If your only motivation is to keep them away from school and not to provide and support your child's education, then your child will be at a loss.

Getting that "why" down will be the most important step towards no-regret homeschooling. Homeschool your children simply because you love them. That love will never change, so your motivation will never change. There won't be waffling in your decision.

It's pretty simple to feel confident that you love your children more than the state does. You can apply the same confidence towards anyone who questions your decision to homeschool. You can shrug it off without offense. While they may care about your family, you can know that they don't love your child as much as you do. No one else has that parent-child bond with your child.

*Deciding to send your child to school is not a sign of not loving your child. But, if that's your decision, make it out of love and not fear!

Read the next part

• Over the years at different times we've offered Just for Fun classes. They are FREE one-hour Zoom meetings on a topic, typically about other countries or languages. If we have a good turnout, we'll try to do more over the summer. We usually say ages 8 and up for these things. Feel free to attend as a family. Parents are welcome.

• The topic for this Just for Fun class is Old English. Our British Literature students have had some introduction to Old English. Beowulf is discussed lots in the Old English class.

• These classes are taught by my husband, known as Mr. G. One of our sons, Peter,  joined him this time. Mr. G occasionally pops up in the curriculum. Your child might have seen him in one of the poetry videos, or maybe in a video on verbs or fractions.

• This class was on June 25. Here is the RECORDING of the class.
• Here is a page you can print summarizing the information presented in class.
• Here is some more in-depth information on Old English, researched and presented by Peter.

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Becoming a NASA Intern is a highly competitive process, where you'll have the chance to work on cutting-edge research and receive mentor ship from current NASA employees. Internships can be completed during the Fall, Spring, or Summer, and spaces for high school students are limited to select centers.

To qualify, you need to be at least 16 years old and have a 3.0 GPA on a 4.0 scale (or an unweighted 3.0 GPA). You can apply here, and you'll need to make sure you have a strong letter of recommendation.

Student Historian Internship Program
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Open to: High school students, entering grades 10, 11, or 12.

On a side note, if your child is interested in a local business, your child could ask them if they would be interested in an intern. Let them know if the expectation is to work for free or for a low wage. My daughter (college student) works as an intern at a stained glass workshop. She has very flexible hours and can stop and then start again as school demands, and I'm sure they are happy she gets paid a fraction of what their full-time employees make. They've already offered full time for when she finishes school. I don't think she'll want to do that, but it's certainly a way in the door of some place your child is interested in.

A year ago I announced we had our own home! It was a decades-long wait for me, but a dream fulfilled by my loving Father. Although we struggled with coming back to America after being overseas for fourteen years, looking back, we are assured that He has us in just the right place, not just in America, but down to being in this home. We were just discussing last night how everything worked to point us to being right here, right now. For such a time as this, right?

Thanks for sticking with us this year! I know we had a roller-coaster ride in the middle of the year when the site crashed. It was actually a sweet time in the Lord for me, His peace and presence being so close and clear. It felt like a personal victory to me being able to walk through it in that state of mind.

This was actually a pretty awesome year for our family. We had our first ever year in our own home. We've been slowly working on it. We've been able to host guests and spend time with neighbors.

Easy Peasy grew lots this year and we've been able to use that to help families locally and around the world. We just got an ad page up to help EP families hopefully, and we brought back our book request for struggling families.

My husband started working on a Bible translation project this year, in the North Macedonia dialect of Romani. He's partnering via Messenger with his best friend, his language teacher from Macedonia (now named North Macedonia). He's also become a regular guest preacher by Zoom at churches in India.

During the spring quarantine, I made miracle story videos to encourage people to not be afraid. I got up a site this year to house those videos, as well as other teachings, a gospel message, and the Romani Bible translation. That's been fun work. I make the videos for the audio version of the Bible translation. While my husband and his friend have worked out how to write down this mostly unwritten language, the main thrust of the translation is to make it available as audio. It's out on social media now and some Roma have started getting together online weekly to pray and read the scriptures for the first time in their own language.

This fall I led a reading/Bible study group using my novel,The King Will Make a Way. That was a fun and encouraging time for me as well.

Beginning this first week of January, you'll be able to add "Good Morning, Lord" to your My EP course list. I am making 2-minute Bible teaching videos. I've been going through Genesis so far. This year I also wrote a Bible study called "This Is Eternal Life" on the high school site. That was the book of Matthew, and I've been adding onto that going through the book of John.

We got some more courses done as workbooks, as requested by our EP families. I got out some updates to our My EP site to make things even easier peasier. We replaced a multitude of Flash games with our very own fun activities, and I got to see my once-a-year-friends at our annual EP picnic, which is always a treat!

Here are our EP stats. We've almost made it everywhere in the world! The darker color means more people use it there.

The dark blue is actual visitors. The big blocks are just views. These aren't registered users, just people finding their way to the All-in-One Homeschool site. But still…what a difference a year makes. The Lord uses all things for good…

All praise to the One who does all things well. I'm grateful to get to be part of what He's up to. Thanks for joining our EP family, whether you've been here from the start or are just beginning. We're happy to have you and hope we can do a good job of serving your family. It's our desire to have a little part of bringing life into homes.

daddariochimand.blogspot.com

Source: https://allinonehighschool.com/