Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool

Happy Ressurection Day everyone! Here’s a link to an old blog post of mine about our Easter Sunday tradition.

Someone pointed out to me that I had repeated some day numbers on Math – 1. I got it all straightened out, but if you happen to be between Day 120 and Day 140 on the first level, the assignments just changed on you. Days 121-125 are new and the others are just scooted back and combined.

Also, I finally added reading lists to the history pages. I also updated the other reading lists trying to standardize how I presented them.

This past week I posted a series of grammar lessons on facebook.

Day 1

Good grammar isn’t only useful on standardized tests. Check out this quote, “One of the easiest, quickest and most widely used indicators of a candidate’s worth is his or her grammar.”

The easiest way to learn correctly spoken English is to hear it. Unfortunately, we’re not all the best examples. To help, this week I’ll be posting mini grammar lessons, starting with one that trips up my family.

“Good” is an adjective, so it describes nouns.
“Well” is an adverb, so it describes verbs.
You did well.
You did a good job.

quote from: http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/how-good-is-your-grammar/

Day 2

Ask your kids to correct your grammar and they’ll have fun learning it.

Today’s lesson:
I is a subject pronoun. Me is an object pronoun.

Peter and I will be there.
The gift is for Lydia and me.

There’s an easy way to test which one you should use. Just take out the other word. For instance, take out Peter. Which sounds right, I will be there or Me will be there? The gift is for me or the gift is for I? Then it’s easy to tell which is correct.

Day 3

If I were a rich man…

“Were” is often the right choice in such a statement, but it’s not always correct.

Here’s a visual to help you understand the difference between “if I was” and “if I were.”

Day 4

Today’s grammar point was inspired by a science teacher I heard interviewed on tv. She said, “I seen…” Hopefully that is discordant to your ears, but here are a few examples of past tense forms that sometimes get confused. They are listed as the present tense, past tense, and the past participle.

ring rang have rung
sing sang have sung
sink sank have sunk
see saw have seen
shrink shrank have shrunk
begin began have begun

So, “the pants shrunk” is wrong; “the pants shrank” is right. “The boat sunk” is wrong; “the boat sank” is right.

Here’s another article on the importance of grammar.

Day 5

While I was writing my novel, I was constantly looking up grammar rules and the right way to write things. Here are a few past tense forms that tripped me up.

Sneaked is the past tense of sneak. Snuck is actually only colloquial and is never technically correct.

Lay is the past tense of lie.

Do the know the difference between lie and lay?
Lay takes a direct object. Do you know what that means?
Lie down is what you do to yourself.
Lay down is what you do to something else, the object.
You tell your kids to lie down for a nap.
You lay your baby down for a nap.
If you aren’t sure, try saying “place” instead. You don’t place down at night; you lie down. You could place your pattern on the table; you lay out your pattern on the table.

In the past, this is what it looks like.
Yesterday I lay down for a nap.
Yesterday I laid that paper right here.
I have lain down every afternoon this week.
I have laid out your work for you every day this week.

Writers aren’t the only ones who need grammar. If you have a child who wants to be a missionary, grammar is really important. Why? It’s an important part of learning a language. When I was learning Macedonia, I had to learn to insert certain prefixes depending on whether the following word was used as a direct object or an indirect object. In Russian word forms change all the time depending on how they are being used in a sentence.

Day 6

How about written English…

your (possessive, your friend)
you’re (contraction, you are)
its (possessive, its color)
it’s (contraction, it is)
their (possessive, their house)
they’re (contraction, they are)

Just say the contractions as two words, and you’ll know if that’s the one you should be using.

affect/effect
Affect is most often used as a verb. That really affected me.
Effect is most often used as a noun. What is the effect you’re looking for?

accept/except
I accept your apology.
I like them all except this one.

There is an 8th grader waiting for another 8th grader to read her essay and give her feedback. If your child has gotten past Day 25 on the 8th level and has skipped peer editing, consider sending in an essay or at least asking your child to follow the guidelines to give feedback on the essay posted.

I had a mother send in her own essay for peer editing. I don’t feel right about posting it on there under 8th grade. I don’t think the content is appropriate (a birth story) and they aren’t her peers, but you are. If anyone is interested, here is her essay. You can follow the peer editing guidelines and give your feed back to her directly at kellkell  AT  kicomputing.com .

This is her essay.

My Black-haired Boy: A Birth Story

My black-haired boy will be turning nine. He wants to buy our one-ton van when we turns seventeen. At first he talked about living in it. But lately the idea of living on his own seems “too close to being an orphan.” This boy was a long-awaited son. He had to wait ten years to be born, though that means now that he gets Michael for his big brother which I thinks he considers a big time bonus. In spite of all the time spent waiting, life with this boy has been one unexpected ride, beginning with the day of his birth.

The day after his mom and dad’s first anniversary and smack down on the birthday of the six-year-old sister who’d been praying for two years for a twin. His timing was completely perfect. Well, the four a.m. start time and the 14 ½ hour delivery wasn’t my first choice . . .

Four a.m. and I spring awake. But why? On my way to the bathroom I find out; my water broke. Ew. I figured that was what it was because I’d heard it happen in so many movies. Dave was panic struck. Apparently the movies he watched made this into a much bigger emergency that those I’d seen. But the most laid back person of all was our midwife much to Dave’s frustration. “Was the liquid clear?” She queried. I informed her that it was actually the shade of a lovely toasted marshmallow.

She told me to get something to drink and wait for three minute contractions; they were about seven minutes in the beginning. Dave disagreed and the midwife conceded “it doesn’t seem like you’re going to be able to labor at home” and met us at the birthing center at five a.m. I imagine the lady from church who lived in our apartment complex and volunteered to babysit our four older kids would have sided with the midwife. Laboring at home must have been a concept they covered in the Lamaze classes I didn’t take.

After a few hours of sitting/laying and eating the McDonald’s breakfast Dave brought in, my contractions were a comfy fifteen minutes apart which meant I could doze between them. This was good, no? No, this was bad. In order to give birth in the birthing center I’d so carefully chosen because of their billboard, I had to deliver within twelve hours of my water breaking. And so began the marching.

Hours of pacing, accumulating miles up and down the two little hallways. Walking brings contractions. Around one o’clock the nice people who were taking care of our kids started to call and ask was I done yet. “Really, you’ve been up and down the runway modelling that hospital gown for positively hours and accomplished nothing? You’ve got to be results oriented.” Their impatience increased my anxiety but ultimately did nothing to speed up the process.

I knew that Benjamin had moved downward a bit at least, because I’d lost the ability, try as I might, to pee. I explained this to one of the midwives. I really needed to go and had for hours. Was there anything she could do? She reluctantly stated that she could possibly insert a catheter if I really thought it was necessary. My answer: a resounding “Yes!” It seems that I am the only person in the history of the planet to ever ask for and gleefully anticipate a catheter. It was one of my better decisions to this day.

Eventually, the time to push arrived. I held back as long as I could even after given the okay. Pushing. They told me that some women described the baby actually emerging the birth canal as a ring of fire. Johnny Cash rings in my ears every time I think it, and it is the best way I have ever heard describe the sensation. There was an actual ring of fire down there, glowing red like a branding iron for one unbearable, interminable moment. Then it was over.

I held my thrilling bundle of joy. His ears were exactly, round and he had no eyebrows. He was perfect. Dave and I cuddled him for about a half hour, from six thirty to seven. Then Dave left to get the children. It was nice for people from our church to offer to watch our four kids while I gave birth, but they’d been hounding us for hours their hospitality expired. I hope I remember, when I have the chance to return the favor for some future mom, to plan on a long day.

He brought the kids back the birthing center, God bless places that encourage families to be at family events. We have a couple heart-warming snapshots of the four of them all on the bed with me and their little, new brother. Later they laid down on the floor, and we all got a bit of sleep. At midnight everything was declared fine and we packed our family into our blessing of a minivan. I buckled Benjamin into our blessing of an infant car seat. And we drove home in a soft springtime Tennessee drizzle.

That’s been almost nine years ago. As I look back I know that there have been bits of joy I’ve missed, but I’ve caught a lot of them, and I know there will be more to look forward to. And I know we have forever together if we can cling to The Father’s will. Thank you, Benjamin for waiting to be my black-haired boy. You’re everything I wanted and so much more.

 

Part 1 – Stepping out of the boat

Why would I offer this for free? Let me tell you a piece of my story.

My husband and I served the Lord overseas for 14 years. For several years we raised the money that we received monthly from our agency. When we came home on furlough, we spent each weekend in a different church, sharing our stories and hoping for financial support.

In 2008, we felt convicted to leave the system. We didn’t like it being such a business, a job. We thought serving the Lord should be 24/7/365, not a 40-hour week. My husband also felt like he was “unequally yoked” at his job teaching English. He didn’t like that they controlled his time.

So he left his job, and we left our agency. We wrote to all of our supporters and told them to send their money to the needy instead. We stepped out of the boat and onto the water. We were going to trust the Lord to provide, and we were pretty sure we would be tested to see if we really did trust Him.

Part 2 – The Test

We eventually ran out of money, but that’s when the miracles happened. We were trusting God to provide. The bills were due the next day. A few people still sent us money from time to time, saying that the Lord had prompted them to give. We accepted their gifts. They would give through Paypal, and it would show up in our bank account under “pending balance.” With nothing pending in our bank account, we knew it could be at least three business days before money would be available, even if someone sent something that night.

Before bed, my husband decided to check the bank account one more time. And there it was, our miracle. $1000 was in our available balance. It said it was a direct deposit. We had told no one of our need. My parents were the only ones with our bank account info, and they were traveling out of the country at the time and had nothing to do with it. $1000 was enough for the whole next month (We lived in a ghetto very cheaply.) We lived by miracle, with no regular income, for about a year and a half.

Part 3 – The Accidental Blogger

During that same time our family learned about lapbooks from a friend of mine. She pointed out one that we got for $1. (This is also how we learned about Currclick.com.) I started designing lapbooks for my kids to make because I couldn’t/wouldn’t shell out money for something I could just make myself. My kids started designing lapbooks for themselves.

I had always posted family pictures online for our far-away family and friends, and I would post pictures of our lapbooks to show the grandparents what the kids were doing for school. I started getting strangers showing up at my family page to see our lapbooks. (Google alerted them.) I felt strange having these strangers looking at my family photos, so I separated them and started posting our school pictures on a blog, “Just Us.”

I thought I could earn money by making lapbooks and selling them on Currclick.com.  I sent them a sample and they sent me a contract. Before I signed it, the Lord convicted me. I was impressed to not sell them but to give them away. So I did. Giving away free lapbooks, I started building a small following at my homeschool blog. They were the first to hear about EP and were the ones who first spread the word about it.

Part 4 – The Rest of the Story

There was never a question of selling this curriculum. The Lord had already turned my heart on that issue, but I was making the site for my own children, and I didn’t want to have this whole curriculum and have only my children use it. I wanted to help others who needed to homeschool for free. From day one I wrote the assignments to be used by anyone, not just my family.

If you’ve been following along, it’s not hard to understand how I got started homeschooling for free. We are no longer in the same situation. My husband got a great job teaching foreign languages to homeschool students online through Currclick.com. He worked part time, set his own hours, and he LOVES foreign languages and has fun teaching.

But now I am committed to homeschooling for free. The first year I was putting together the curriculum, no one else was using it. When a few people did start using it, I added the donate button to the site. I knew I was offering something of value and that there would be people who would want to give.

So, hopefully you can see who I am and why I would offer this for free a little better now. I love giving. It makes me happy. I have learned to trust God to provide, so I don’t feel the need to build the curriculum into a business. It’s an encouragement every time I’m surprised by a donation message in my inbox, but it’s a bigger encouragement when people write to tell me about how they couldn’t have continued homeschooling without the site. I’m not going to take it away from them.

2020 Update: I have updated this post a little with a few tweaks. We’re no longer overseas, having lost our visa. For a little while we thought about my husband getting work and us earning our living in the world, but we feel strongly again that the Lord wants us to trust Him with our income. So, while there had even been thoughts of a paid and free version of the site (which only would have been about mom convenience and never a difference for the kids’ experience), I still felt convicted to just make the new My EP Assignments the same for everyone. You can donate or not. Everyone gets the same thing. In the fall of 2019, my husband started helping me with EP. It’s our family’s income. EP is our full-time work, sort of. We serve the Lord; part of that is serving you. My husband is currently working on Bible translation in the Romani language in the dialect of the largest Romani settlement in the world. (We used to live there.) He encourages pastors around the world, is a guest preacher in India, and is an all-around helper to me and EP. He does editing, laundry :), and has made some courses for the high school site and poetry videos for the younger students. We also have contract laborers helping out with this and that.

I recently received an email with the subject line, “Is it really this simple?”

The real question, though, is probably one you’ve asked yourself. I know I have. It’s this one: am I doing enough?

What does that question mean? Do you know what you are asking? Enough for what? To appease your doubtful parents? To keep up with the Joneses? For your child to get a job? Or to get into college on a full scholarship?

What is your goal in educating your children? What are your goals for your family? Do you want children who love God and family and serve others? Is following the public school format of school all day and then more work in the evening really conducive to meeting that goal?

My husband and I want our children to be educated. We give them a core body of knowledge to remove their ignorance. The curriculum I’ve designed for my own family is one that I believe covers all of the basics and provides an excellent foundation in reading and writing, which I believe are indispensable for any future learning or career. We don’t know what the future will hold for our children, so we want them to be prepared for anything. We want our children to be able to get into the college of their choice, if they make that choice. We certainly would love for them to get full scholarships, but we’re not going to put that pressure on them or ourselves and make that THE goal.

I know I am doing enough. For our family, doing enough is covering the basics thoroughly and giving our children free time to devote to their passions. My children are already pursuing their future work. Because I keep their “school” day short and don’t have them in outside activities, they have hours of free time every day to do what they love. These things, their passions, are what will be important in their lives, more important than their ability to place chemicals on a periodic table or to list the presidents.

There tend to be two groups of parents who ask this “enough” question the most. Those with kindergartners, who wonder why I don’t do addition and subtraction and history and science with the five-year-olds, and those with high schoolers, who are wondering if what they are doing “counts.”

To the moms of kindergartners I say, your children will be able to complete calculus in high school even if they wait until they are in first grade to begin “real” math. Enjoy this time with your kids. Read books together. Google the answers to their questions. Watch videos. Try to relax.

To the moms of high schoolers I say, in some states your child could play video games for four years and you could call him a high school graduate. My state, Pennsylvania, is not one such state. Here are their guidelines for what “counts.” To count as a completed high school course a student can do ANY of the following: complete two-thirds of a textbook, have 120 daily logged entries, have 120 hours of logged study, complete a 10 page research paper, complete a college course, or pass an AP exam. If you follow Easy Peasy, you’ll have 180 “daily logged entries.” You’ll be way ahead of the game.

I wrote the assignments on Easy Peasy for my children. It’s “enough” for our family, but your children are yours, not mine. If this curriculum will help you meet your family’s goals, then use it and be happy with your decision.

There will always, always be someone else doing something different, something more. There have been times in the past when I’ve read on blogs about what other people were doing for school and their kids’ amazing accomplishments and certainly felt lacking. Well, guess what? My kids are turning out pretty amazing themselves. I bet your kids are pretty amazing too.

I’m someone who believes that everyone has genius in them. Everyone has something special to offer the world. I love giving my kids not only a great education, but the time to discover and develop their genius, and I’m teaching them that their gift is something to use to bless others.

So, I leave the question to you now. Is what you are doing enough? What are you really asking? Think it over. Pray it over. And I pray you come out on the other side joyful and at peace.