Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool

If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.

-Mark Twain

This is a quote about doing the hard thing. If there’s something you don’t want to do, do it first and get it done. This was my philosophy behind putting poetry first each year in our reading courses. I think poetry is hard. My husband loves it. I don’t get it. But, it’s good for our brains and souls. It’s behind all the songs you love. It’s the words of the Psalms.

But still, poetry isn’t my thing. I can appreciate a good limerick. Making up those fun rhymes is the extent of my poetic ability. So, I do it first. It’s why you put laundry in first thing in the morning. Get it done by getting it done now.

While math starts off with an easy review at the beginning of the year, reading starts with poetry. I’m writing this post to encourage you to not skip it. Get it done. It will pass. My husband, the beloved Mr. G, has made videos for the poetry sections so that there are audio versions and to help with comprehension. I even jumped on one video to read a favorite poem of mine. See, even this math girl can like poetry. You can too!

So, while you, as the teacher and administrator of the school in your home, have every right to skip things and decide what works for your family and what doesn’t, I would encourage you to not just let your kids skip the hard things. That’s not a lesson you want learned. Let’s not encourage others to follow our lead if we don’t bother with it.

The more you skip things, the more your kids will want to skip things. It’s a slippery slope. If they know they have to do all their assignments, they won’t ask to skip things. They’ll know they have to get it done. If they know they can sometimes get you to let them just skip something, they will ask and push to get away with what they can.

Let’s go for it and push through. That doesn’t mean you everything gets understood. That doesn’t mean you have a breakthrough and love poetry. It means you did your best and didn’t give up. Eat the frog.

 

• 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.

Here are some new links on the site.

New Offline Course

Literature and Composition I  (formerly known as English 8) is now available as an offline course.

• There are two readers and two workbooks, Language Arts and Vocabulary.
• These books will match the updated version of the course which will replace what’s on the site on July 4th. (The old course link will still be available after that time.)

Algebra 1 is on its way soon with an offline version and an updated course.

New Parent-Submitted Courses

New courses from an EP mom: History of Rock (under music) and Crash Course film making (under art) on the “Links to Other Courses” page. She also made a high school English course for her son with learning disabilities. (Reminder: we don’t control content on “other courses.”)

High School Planning

High school/College page has some new links on transcripts, as well as a planner for those wanting to plot out their four-year course direction.

Our resources for teens page has a planner for teens if you want to start encouraging your child to maintain a schedule.

Summer School

Summer Study Options – We have summer study books for those finishing up 1st, 2nd, and 3rd levels (buy or print). The page also has links to other ideas and options. I’ve added a link to a character training pack, a summer study schedule, and some new copywork for those who have already used what we’ve linked to before.

 

 

I made some graduation designs for 2021. I also made a couple others just for fun. You can find them in our EP Swag store. These designs can each be found on shirts and a few other items. This is just a sample for each. Most items allow you to choose your color.

 

 

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.