Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool

I’m really excited about this new course I’ve added to the All-in-One Homeschool site. I was inspired to create it after subbing as a Sunday school teacher. I asked the kids, “How would someone know you were a Christian?” Two fifth graders piped up, “Because we believe Jesus died on the cross.” That was the consensus. I pointed out the problem with that. There were people watching Jesus die who were mocking Him. They saw Him die. They knew He died on the cross. They didn’t become followers. Knowing wasn’t enough.

If you use our site’s curriculum, you’ll eventually come across a link to what I call my favorite sermon, Ten Shekels and a Shirt. Paris Reidhead talks about how salvation by intellectual assent crept into the church to the point where someone is said to have become a Christian because they can say, “Uh-huh” and nod their head in answer to a few questions.

Salvation isn’t acceptance of the historical record. Salvation isn’t accepting facts about Jesus. Salvation is a supernatural transaction where we are delivered from the kingdom of this world and transferred into the kingdom of God. It’s where our flesh is crucified and buried and we are resurrected as a new creation so that we can say, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”

In the course, we will learn some big words like “propitiation,” but this is not a theology course. I don’t want you to know about God. I want you to know God so you can live in the salvation Jesus bought for you.

I would love for anyone who considers themselves to be seeking after God, seeking after life and freedom in Christ to go through the course. I do not teach the doctrines of man. I teach the Bible. All of God’s word is true, not just the verses that support a particular position! The course uses a lot of Scripture, hoping to always point you to God’s word. On the course page you can find the outline of the course to see all the topics covered.

I am aiming at 90 lessons. I have posted the first 60 as I finish off the rest, which will be up in September. I usually say my teachings are for age 11 through adult and that if you want to use it with younger kids, use it as a family.

You can use the course off of AllinOneHomeschool.com, but to track what lesson you are on, you can use a free My EP account. You will find this course in the Bible block on My EP. Click on Next Course to find it just after the high school Bible courses. You can also add it from the Bible block on the Extras page or as a Parent Add-On. Here’s a video on how to do those things.

This post is for the Christians.

I wrote a post on this topic a little over three and a half years ago, but it’s been on my mind again. This is NOT a repost. I’m writing it fresh from my heart to yours.

I have a prayer binder that’s over two inches thick. It weighs almost four pounds. I pray for you, your children, your families. One of the things I pray against is this homeschooling lifestyle becoming an idol. I don’t want you pursuing an ideal of what a homeschool family should look like. I want you pursuing Jesus and loving Him with your all. Homeschooling is not the goal, just something the Lord might use to help you along to the goal.

If you are imitating other families in how they school, dress, have family devotions, order their day, spend their free time, etc., then you are headed the wrong way. I highly recommend burning, shredding, destroying in any manner you can, all Christian books that instruct in how to do something. A Christian book should only point you to the Bible to seek from God what He wants from you. He is creative and can lead each family uniquely.

It doesn’t matter if the person you are learning from is successful and blessed in what they are doing. They may very well be following the Lord’s leading in what they are doing, but if you start following them, you are going after the wrong thing. We are disciples of Christ, no one else. And I say this as someone who teaches and disciples people. While I try to share the stories of God working in my life to give an example of how God can work in your life, I hope I always point everyone to Christ to seek after their own relationship and never encourage anyone to just copy me.

Think about what your heart is set on. It needs to be set on God alone. You goal is knowing and loving and serving Him alone. Has any other desire crept in? Has any other goal been directing your decisions?

If you find something other than the Holy Spirit and God’s word directing your steps, confess. Ask for help refocusing. We have a beautiful promise from God. Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you.

“All these things” are everything the Lord knows we need. He can take care of them for us. What does it mean to seek His kingdom? In August I will be releasing the September Study for the year. It’s called The Kingdom. I am also planning on releasing Disciples of Christ, an EP course to disciple you through teachings on the foundations of faith, who God is, and who we are in Christ. As with all my stuff, I usually recommend ages 11 through adult and that if you want to use it with younger kids, do it together.

But in the meantime, seeking God’s kingdom and His righteousness is seeking to know and obey God. I have tons of teaching on the site to help you along with reading through the Bible. Read His word. Talk to Him. He’s a good Father, able and ready to help.

Amazon is raising their book printing prices in June. I’m not sure when/how it will all work, but I wanted to give you the heads up so that if you were planning on buying books, you could do it now before the end of May.

We will not be getting any extra money from the increase. This is just on Amazon’s end. Actually, I have been impressed with them keeping their prices the same over the last two years when we’ve seen such an increase in other things. It was pretty inevitable. The general idea is that the price is going about $1.20 for every 100 pages, so some books, like readers, will be affected more than parent guides, which would just go up cents.

When I’ve looked into other places to publish, I always end up back at Amazon as the cheapest option. One of our core values at EP is availability; having low-cost books is part of our striving to do that.

We have a new high school math course. It’s a full 180-day course. The focus is consumer math, but also covers many practical, real-world math applications.

Although the course is mainly based on online textbooks, there are some fun extras mixed in. They will spend one lesson playing a game as an Uber driver, trying to actually get the bills paid. In another lesson they will run a magic show and try to make a profit as they work to make it to Vegas. There are some mini-units on cryptocurrency, economics, philanthropy and more.

This is intended for high school. The daily lessons are expected to take 40 minutes on average. There is a note a couple of weeks into the course about how to adapt lessons if they are taking longer than an hour. This is a new course, so we’d be happy for feedback on the experience.

Check out the course. There is no offline version of the course at this time.

In other news, as of yesterday I have three adult children! He was born on Mother’s Day 18 years ago. I still have three being homeschooled, ages 10 – 15.

Do you remember ever having the experience of being asked for directions as a kid and having no idea, but then after you got your driver’s license you knew your way around? The difference was that you didn’t have to know for yourself until you were responsible for knowing it for yourself.

When you are helping your child with their work, try to remember that principle. If they are independent readers, have them try before you even look at anything. Have them try to figure it out on their own. It’s my policy to not step in until they’ve tried on their own first.

If they need help figuring it out, talk through what they need to do, but then let them do it. If they need redirecting, go ahead and point out what they need to be doing for the first one. Look ahead and see where they will need to do something different and maybe circle the first one that might be different to alert them. But then walk away. They need to figure it out for themselves. Just because they can do it with you talking them through the steps, doesn’t mean they are learning the steps they need to do.

You can ask your child to check their first answer, or to come to you to check, so they can make sure they are on the right track. If they got it wrong, see if they can figure out where they messed up. You should have them redo it to make sure they get it right. You can ask questions to guide them along, but don’t just tell them what to write. Then let them try on their own again. Then check again, and so on, until they are completing them correctly independently. They need to do it on their own to be able to do it on their own. If they keep coming for help, you can start a policy of having to do four on their own before they can be done, and you can just make up more for them to do, so they can’t get away with just always asking for help.

I have a child with special needs, and he’s used to having someone sit next to him for when he needs help. I have to distract myself and even walk away to leave him to try things on his own. Otherwise, it’s too easy for him to ask for help if I’m right there or for me to jump in too quickly. It’s an important skill to figure things out for yourself.

I can see in my adult son how helpful it was to him that I couldn’t help him with his computer design work he does. He would come to me with a problem, and I had no clue, and I would always just send him back with, “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” He perseveres and figures it out. Now he has companies contacting him regularly because he’s someone who figured out what others haven’t. This isn’t just about borrowing in subtraction or changing the Y to an I. This is a life skill. It’s problem solving and perseverance, and they will serve your children well for the rest of their lives.