**Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links, which means if you buy a product from a link on this page, I may earn a small commission from it. I would like to point out that nobody asked me to write this review and I’m not getting paid for writing this article. This is 100% my own opinion, no fluff. I wrote this article because Easy Peasy saved my homeschool… for real. Other moms need to know it’s out there… it might save their homeschool, too.**
Finding the Right Curriculum
In my last post about dealing with discouragement, I talked about how our family has had to change our game plan on more than one occasion. Between moving a few times, having a new baby, my husband starting a new business and me going back to work part-time, it was definitely rough. My husband was serving on the worship team and these responsibilities just compounded. To be completely honest, over the last year I have really struggled NOT to put my children in school. My focus has been on me and how much easier it would be to let someone else rear my children. If we focus too much on ourselves, we forget the big picture of WHY we started homeschooling to begin with.
We were using an intense all-book curriculum. It had every subject you could think of. It came with lesson plans for every grade. I LOVE to be organized. I LOVE to think ahead. But with the arrival of little boy #3, I realized that I just couldn’t keep up anymore. I pushed. We did 8 hour homeschool days with a few hours worth of breaks and a few hours of work spread throughout the whole day. I had to do it this way in order to give the baby the attention he needed. For 8 hours of homeschooling time, we were still homeschooling well into the night – even until bedtime. Homeschooling was consuming our lives and I didn’t know what to do. I was exhausted. Something had to give.
After a year of complaining about how hard it was, I finally went to God and asked him HOW instead of WHY. He led me into yet another search for a new curriculum. Knowing all of the options we had already tried, my hopes weren’t high, but forward I walked. It was in this search that I stumbled upon the curriculum that has given us back the freedom that is supposed to come with homeschooling.
Can Homeschooling Really be “Easy Peasy”?
In my searching, I came across a full, Christian curriculum online called Easy Peasy Homeschooling. It was an answer to my prayers! I had come across this curriculum more than once, but I honestly dismissed it. I had done tons of research about the curriculum I was using. It had everything I wanted. And besides, can homeschooling REALLY be “Easy Peasy”? I doubted it. So on I went, refusing to yield to other options. I was determined to make what I had work. Especially since I had spent hundreds of dollars on it. I wasn’t ready to look into other options until I was finally at the end of my rope. It didn’t take long for me to get there.
My family and I were falling behind. My first grader was struggling more with reading than he should’ve been. My second grader needed help in math. If I wanted to keep my children on track, I needed to do something fast! The problem was, that I didn’t have any money to put into it. We always used our tax return to buy any major homeschool expenses we needed and tax time wasn’t coming any time soon. Easy Peasy is totally free if you stay strictly with online resources. So I decided to give it a try. We did a trial run.
My Testimonial
The first few days, I sat right next to my children as they did all of their lessons. It claimed to be Christian, but I was skeptical about whether or not it would REALLY teach the important things, like science and history, from a Christian worldview. Our family believes 100% everything the Bible teaches. We believe that science complements the Bible; even if man doesn’t know all the answers, God does. We believe in the “young earth” theory. We believe all the fish and birds were created on Day 5 of creation; we believe all of the land animals were created on Day 6. We know that studies show that carbon dating is NOT accurate. And we believe that a bird + a bird = a bird… not a dinosaur.
We were teaching our children about different religions in the ancient world, specifically Egypt and Mesopotamia. We were on a 4 year cycle with history, and I loved that about our curriculum. To my surprise, Easy Peasy was on the same type of 4 year history cycle. I really loved the family learning cycle option that so many curricula offer, so that my children were learning the same history content at the same time. Easy Peasy has the same type of set-up. I loved the fact that I could customize each subject of my current curriculum to tailor it to each child’s individual needs. I could raise them a grade level in reading and lower them a grade level in math if I needed to. Easy Peasy offers the SAME options! I was completely blown away. It was literally everything I loved about my current curriculum… Except it was all FREE. And on TOP of that, I didn’t have to sift through (literally) 50 pages of teacher’s notes to be able to teach it. And it is all organized by what they should be learning on each day – NO MORE LESSON PLANS!
After only 8 days of using Easy Peasy All-In-One-Homeschool, I could tell a SIGNIFICANT difference in my first grader’s ability to read. He hated reading because it was difficult for him. Everywhere we went, he started reading signs, t-shirts and whatever he could lay his little eyes on! He was finally making progress. He was finally starting to ENJOY it! My 2nd grader has always struggled with math. After a week with Easy Peasy, he was doing math exercises that even I had trouble figuring out! I was shocked by how quickly my children were advancing… and it was so little effort on my part.
Is it Really Free?
Lee, the lady who created EP, started out by creating lapbooks to sell on her website. The Lord convicted her about selling them, so she decided to give them away for free instead. This led to a bigger following on her homeschool website. She started posting her children’s lessons online. Homeschooling could get expensive quickly. She followed her convictions and created a program that would allow low income families to homeschool, too. She created an option that would break through the financial barrier and allow everyone the ability to homeschool. And thus, Easy Peasy was born.
How It Works
Easy Peasy was originally created to be completely online. It uses online resources to teach anything and everything your children need to know. They even have links to their exact Bible reading for each day. Every subject is taught from a Christian worldview. To start out, you read their placement guide on their different subjects to see which level your child would benefit from. If your child is on the same level across the board, it’s super easy. All you have to do is click their level (example: Level 3 for third grade). The first round of subjects are on this page. Math, Reading, Writing, Spelling, Computer and Thinking are all listed on this web page. The child just clicks on the Level they are using and scrolls down to the day they are on. They read their lessons, they answer the questions, and they follow the directions. They click the links when they are instructed to and voila!
This curriculum has literally learned how to use the internet to their complete advantage. There are all kinds of resources online that they use. I especially love all of the games it uses to teach math, which has always been a tough subject in our home. Since my children are learning though games, they absolutely love their new curriculum.
After your child gets done with the lessons for their “Level” they now go to the next link, their “Year”. As I mentioned before, Easy Peasy operates on a 4 year rotation that allows all of your children grades 1-8 to be learning the same history and science content at the same time. The way they accomplish this is by having a link for 4 different “years” of lessons. Each of the 4 “years” is split into 2 levels. Level “L” is for lower grade levels (1st-4th) and “M” is for for the middle grade levels (5th-8th). This way, each child is learning the same general content, but at their own level of understanding. So when your child finishes their “level” all they have to do is switch to the “year” that you’ve chosen ahead of time for your family to study together. All your child has to do is choose the correct year, and just scroll down to whichever day they are on. The year you choose will include their lessons for Bible, History, Science, Art, Music, and PE/Health.
**Update: You are still able to use Easy Peasy according to the above mentioned directions, however the links used for this method are no longer being updated. Easy Peasy has started a new navigation system called My EP Assignments that allows you to choose the day for each different subject, for each student, to allow for even easier use of their website! You can find more info on their website on how to use My EP Assignments. It’s brand new at time of revising this article!**
What if My Child is on Different Levels for Each Subject?
One of the great things about Easy Peasy is that, while there is the option to just choose a level, then choose a year and go, they also have all of their subjects listed individually down the side bar on the right side of the page, separated by the level for that subject. For my second grader, I believed some of the issues we were having were a result of a lack of being challenged in our curriculum. When we started, I asked him which level he wanted to do his “trial” on and he believed he was able to do third grade. So I let him try it. I was happy that he was so challenged because it has pushed him to work harder. Finally, I found something he’s not BORED with! Because of all of the games it uses to teach math, he went from seriously struggling to doing extremely well. Math used to bring lots of tears to our homeschool, and I’m happy to report that we don’t have that issue anymore!
As for my first grader, it wasn’t that easy. My first grader was still learning to read, but he was above where he needed to be with math. I was able to use the individual courses down the side bar to customize exactly what he needed to be learning to keep advancing in every subject. It was STILL “Easy Peasy” but it did take a little longer to find exactly where he needed to be for each subject. The good thing about Easy Peasy is that they also include 2 years of “Getting Ready” as well as a “Learn to Read” section along the side bar. We combined the “Getting Ready 2,” which is the equivalent to Kindergarten, with the Learn to Read in his lessons. I have been having him do 2 lessons daily on each so that he move toward independence before we start off the next year this fall.
This curriculum puts a lot of emphasis on reading. Reading fluently is a must for the child to work independently and still be able to follow the directions appropriately. Their reading levels are advanced compared to the expectations for other programs. But after only 8 days, even my husband noticed a significant difference in his reading abilities!
What if My Child Can’t Read?
My first grader wasn’t a fluent reader when we started Easy Peasy. I was really concerned about his ability to be able to read the directions without my help… and I was right. It takes time to teach a child how to read, regardless of which methods you use. To teach a child to read takes focused one on one attention. Period. The good news is that Easy Peasy gave me the tools I needed to do it with as little stress and preparation as possible. My child started Easy Peasy knowing his letters and their sounds and understanding the idea of blending sounds, but he wasn’t a fluent reader. His fluency has increased tremendously in a very short time. I’ve been very impressed by his progress!
EP starts with teaching the letters and their sounds and then moves into sight words to help with fluency. Then they move on to phonics after the child has a decent number of sight words memorized. I started my son with the sight words and I can’t believe how quickly he has learned.
What About High School?
Easy Peasy All-in-one-Homeschool has a sister site called Easy Peasy All-in-one-High School. I have been using the high school site for my daughter and it’s easy, too. It’s still free and works the same general way. You choose which classes on the “Courses” page you’d like your high schooler to take and it’s spelled out for them day-by-day, just like levels 1-8 are. What’s great about the high school program is that the courses are advanced and many of them can be used to attain dual credits for high school and college both. After she takes these courses, she has the ability to test out of these courses on the college level through CLEP or DSST exams and earn college credit for it. Boo-yah!
The not-so-bright side of high schooling with EP is that there aren’t a ton of class choices. This doesn’t bother me, personally… especially since it’s free! There is a large variety of parent-submitted class options to choose from as well, though, if you’d like more options.
What if I Prefer Books?
Okay, so it sounds great… except for the fact that it’s all online. I completely understand where you’re coming from. There’s nothing like sitting down in your comfy spot all cuddled up with a book. I get it, really. I personally don’t mind everything being online. They can print out their worksheets as they go, and, for me, that makes it way easier to keep track of everything.
Apart from my personal preferences, there are several reasons why a physical book or workbook might be helpful. Some students need a lot of guidance from their parents. Some parents may be intimidated by the idea of setting it up online. And let’s not forget about the fact that maybe it’s just a preference to teach offline. Easy Peasy is actively working on integrating each individual course into book and/or workbook form just for these parents. Kudos to them for reaching out and broadening their audience!
You can use their Learn to Read lessons in paper form, available by clicking the link “Learn to Read” earlier in this sentence. If you would rather buy the printables, instead of having to print them, you can do that too. They have printables available for Getting Ready 1 (preschool) and also the Getting Ready 2 (kindergarten) handwriting printables, which can make your life a little easier. But those are just printables for a course that’s online… they aren’t offline courses. But they do offer the Genesis curriculum, which is technically a different program, completely offline, but is also written by Lee Giles.
My Honest Review
My family switched to Easy Peasy during this last school season and I don’t think I’ll ever look back. Easy Peasy has single-handedly taken all of the tears out of homeschooling for our family {except when it’s naptime!}. It was my last ditch effort when I was ready to totally give up. I dreaded homeschooling my children. It was so much of a fight for all of us. So, speaking from my experience, Easy Peasy has been a life-saver for my family and my homeschool. I no longer dread homeschooling and I don’t feel like I had to compromise a single thing. Simply put, Easy Peasy saved our homeschool.
What Do I Need to Get Started?
When we first started using EP (Easy Peasy), it still took a long time to complete their work, but only because we only had ONE computer for them to be able to do their work. When we realized how well our children were doing with EP, my family decided to invest in an inexpensive 2-in-1 tablet for each of our children to complete their work on. We originally got tablets used off of e-bay… and it only took a few weeks before my children dropped theirs. I would definitely suggest getting a protection plan. Anyway, after receiving their tablets, they were able to each complete their schoolwork at the same time. They usually complete all of their work within 2 to 2 1/2 hours… which is sooo awesome for mama!
Easy Peasy strongly recommends using a Chromebook for each of your children, if you are able. You can buy them refurbished for a more reasonable price (or like this one). Of course you can still complete the courses with one family computer, but if you choose the online option, it can be helpful for each child to have one if you’re able. I know having a device for each child seriously helped me!
The “offline option” is not available in all of the levels of Easy Peasy as of yet, but they are working diligently to get the materials for offline use created as soon as possible. They are doing a great job, too. You are always hearing about the next release dates on their facebook groups. There are several levels in several subjects already available offline at this time. I know for the little ones, they have a sister curriculum that is completely offline called the Genesis Curriculum which is also created by Lee Giles. I am not familiar with Genesis Curriculum, but I’ve heard it’s a great alternative for those who want to go totally offline. The great thing is that there are plenty of facebook groups for Easy Peasy and Genesis Curriculum available online to help you with your questions any time of day.
It Really Can Be “Easy Peasy”
Not only are my children finally getting the education they deserve, but I feel like I finally have my life (and my sanity) back! And we still have plenty of time in the day for them to pursue their passions, learn hands-on with outside play, be active members in our local church, and still participate in karate, baseball, and soccer.
Instead of giving up, I took it to the Lord and He led me to Easy Peasy… I’m so thankful for this curriculum because it literally SAVED my homeschool. Right when I was about to give up, God made a way. And I couldn’t have done it without Easy Peasy. It just might be the answer you’ve been looking for for your homeschool too.