Overview
Easy Peasy All-In-One-Homeschoolis an awesome, free curriculum that uses online resources to teach your students every subject from Pre-K and learning to read, to 8th grade (then you can use their sister-site forhigh school). The creator of this website considers this to be an eclectic style of homeschooling, which mixes ideas from different homeschool styles.
This curriculum provides 180 days (36 weeks) of instruction in all subjects, with the electives (PE/Health, Computer, Art, Music, & Thinking) being completed once weekly (or once each 5th day). The curriculum is designed with a focus on college preparedness.
Reading
Reading is taught beginning with sight-words, which can be effective for beginning to read, but not all parents agree with teaching reading in this way. My second child did wonderfully with this method – he was reading after only 8 days! I’m definitely going to have to backtrack and teach him a lot of spelling rules that got missed by using this method, but I’m totally okay with that. After beginning with sight-words, it does delve into teaching reading through phonics, which is great. If your little one is struggling to master those sight-words, it’s easy to ask an admin in theirfacebook support groupwhere in the lessons you can go to try starting with phonics instead.
Easy Peasy’s reading levels are definitely above typical public school grade level, and also above suggested grade levels that I’ve found on books I’ve bought for my children. It’s challenging because most of the resources used are from books that have an expired copyright, so from around mid-1900’s and earlier, but my personal opinion is that it has made my children better readers to be exposed to these different styles of writing while reading.
Subjects
The list of subjects covered for grades 1st-8th includes Math, Reading, Language Arts, Bible, History, & Science, which are all covered daily. Weekly subjects include Music, Computer, Art, Thinking, and PE/Health. Starting as early as 6th grade, there is the option to add Spanish as a foreign language study, also.
History & Science are designed to be taught in 4 rotating themes:
- Ancient History & Biology
- Early American History & Animals
- Geography/Cultures & Earth Science
- Modern History & Chemistry/Physics
The idea is to start with one and to cycle through the 4 themes, completing one theme each year. History is presented on two levels – lower level assignments for grades 1-4 and upper level assignments for grades 5-8. So, after you cycle through all 4 theme years, the next time your child comes to that theme they’ll be in the next level up. The assignments will be more in-depth and on their new, higher level of understanding.
The rest of the classes are designed to kind of revolve around the History theme. For example, in the Ancient History theme, they’ll also learn about Ancient Art, and do things like rock paintings using berries; they will learn about Ancient Music and learn which instruments were used in those Ancient times. Designing their History and Electives in this way also enables a parent who’s homeschooling multiple children to be able to teach those not-so-grade-specific lessons together, which I absolutely love.
Homeschool Style
The way the program uses the idea of overlapping History ideas across different subjects in this way is similar to the way Unit Studies work. Depending on the theme chosen, there are also lots of lapbooks and hands-on activities for the lower levels, which is also common for Unit Studies.
The ability to teach History in a chronological order, and the idea of teaching topics by levels of understanding, can be likened to a Classical approach to homeschooling.
Some courses, such as Early American History, are designed in a way that reading books and biographies is the main format of teaching the events that unfolded. This can be likened to a Charlotte Mason approach to homeschooling.
Worksheets are also utilized frequently, which is in line with a more Traditional approach to homeschooling – but there’s no repetitive busywork, which is common with a Traditional approach.
Educational games are common in the online curriculum, as well, giving something a little more hands-on and engaging for children to look forward to, in addition to the other hands-on activities that are utilized.
The creator’s ability to incorporate all of these homeschool styles and learning methods is what makes this an Eclectic style curriculum.
Taking it Offline
If you would like to take this curriculum offline, you can buy some of the courses in offline versions, and it is still cost-effective to do it this way – most of them are available for under $10. The reading, language arts, and math courses for most grade levels are available in offline format – you do not have to use the computer for those subjects at ALL.
The offline versions are extremely helpful, in my opinion, because the assignments are still laid out by day and there’s not as much of a demand for the children to use my computer. It gets my children offline AND I don’t have to worry about whether or not I have paper or ink – or whether the worksheets made it into their binders.
The last I knew, they were still working on making some of the 7th and 8th grade books available for offline use. The 7th grade courses may be done by now. I believe only two of the History courses are available offline – they are currently working on making all 4 courses available offline. I’m not sure if they have plans for making the Science courses available offline. None of the weekly electives are available offline, so you will still need a computer if you’d like to include those in your homeschool instruction.
If your concern is that you don’t have an actual computer, most of the activities can be completed on a tablet, but not all of them. While they highly recommend using achromebookas their suggested device, most have had success using a tablet instead. I have had my children use their tablets for this curriculum and they needed to switch to my computer to complete their lessons a lot less often than I expected.
If you want to go TOTALLY offline, the creator of Easy Peasy also has another curriculum calledGenesis Curriculumthat’s available. This curriculum is NOT free but it’s a great alternative for those who want to go offline. I highly recommend this curriculum – in fact, we will be using parts of it as one of our curriculum choices for this coming school year.
Lesson Tracking
They now have updated their site with a feature calledMy EP Assignments, which makes using this curriculum even easier – no more scrolling! This new feature tracks exactly where each child is on each subject and takes them directly to the lesson for that day. The ease-of-use with the new feature was a much-needed update and has moved this to the top of my list for it’s user-friendliness.
My Thoughts
I recommend Easy Peasy as a good starting place for new homeschoolers because it gives lots of exposure to different ways homeschooling can be done. It’s a good place to get your feet wet when you’re new to the homeschooling world. You can mix & match different levels for different subjects, too, so it’s very customizable to your child’s needs – without breaking the bank trying to figure out where they’re at.
Designed for your student to be able to work independently, this is the most user-friendly and in-depth free option for homeschool curriculum, in my opinion. It’s also the most parent-friendly in the way that everything is already done for you after the initial set-up. It’s a great guide when you don’t know where to start.
Getting Started
To get started with Easy Peasy, go toMy EP Assignments, set up an account, choose your child’s level and the theme for the year and watch them go. If you are unsure of where to place your child, use theirPlacement Guidesto help you make your decision. After figuring out where to place your child, you can be starting your homeschool journey in literally 10 minutes with this incredible resource! Your children can print the worksheets as they go. And did I mention it doesn’t take all day long to use this curriculum? You can be done with your homeschool day in 4 hours – at the lower elementary levels, most families are finished in 2-3 hours. Make sure you check out theirAbout&How To Usepages before you start. If you are having trouble figuring out how to set it all up, the moderators on theirfacebook support groupare incredible with helping with any issues you have, so don’t hesitate to contact them.
