Easy Peasy...Is it Easy?

Have you heard of Easy Peasy? I think we have settled into Easy Peasy for now as our go to source for phonics and math. My son is not crazy about the phonics, but he really wants to read so he tolerates it and honestly he hasn't liked any phonics program we have tried so far and this one doesn't take too much time and he is grasping some of it.


We are using the McGuffey Primer on the Easy Peasy site for our phonics. I like how it has words to go over with your child three different times per day and a short reading assignment containing those words. We are also doing some flash cards because my son loves stickers and he likes getting a sticker when he masters learning a new word. Not sure that would work with every student, but the stickers do for him. If it wasn't for the stickers he would totally not do the flashcards, let me tell you! This is in addition to our normal reading rituals. (We row books from Five In A Row and do additional reading and activities using the Bible and Bible-based materials).

The Easy Peasy math curriculum he is so excited about. He loves it!  We are using the first grade math. He actually does more of the math then I require of him. He loves the math games and I like how it presents something fresh everyday. He even enjoys the worksheets too, which surprised me.



Enjoying a garden tomato and recording it in his nature journal.

What I like most about Easy Peasy is you can just pick up anywhere and pick and choose what you want to do or you can follow it as a whole. It has a great structure for a complete curriculum. I have read several people say that there isn't enough material and their kid gets done really fast. I just don't find this to be the case for us. My son spends a couple hours playing the math games, we spend about forty-five minutes on the phonics and this is just on these two subjects and doesn't include the time he spends on the worksheets that I usually print-off and he does in the evening with his dad.

Another feature I like is the daily progress chart as sometimes I like to over complicate things and this is so easy, yet so complete. I just X off each day as we complete the assignments and done. I have made one similar for our subjects outside of Easy Peasy as well and thinking of making all-in-one form soon. When I get it done I will share it with all of you here on my blog. The site is really easy to navigate with just enough instructions. There is lots of printable school supplies lists and handwriting sheets. Anyone that is looking for an inexpensive yet quality program should definitely check out Easy Peasy, even if you already have a program there is a lot of supplemental material that could be put to use.

Homeschooling Using Pinterest

Son and I this summer in downtown
Chattanooga, Tennessee.
My real man is behind the camera. LOL.

So usually how I wind down in the evening is either by writing or pinning. Yes pinning on Pinterest. I can't be the only one that pins on pinterest! Of course not or else there wouldn't be so much there. Well this week my little saw me looking at Pinterest and asked me about it and so I explained what it was and how I used it. So he wanted to pin some stuff too. Now mind me, this is my, me time. I am not wanting him to jerk the laptop away from me and I lose the little time I take for myself, but I also didn't want to say no and I knew this wasn't a game or anything that would hold his five year old attention span long.


So this is what I did.  I set up a board this week that is just for stuff we plan to do this school year. Then I allowed my son to go through all of my homeschooling pins I have been collecting and select the ones that interest him the most. Now Pinterest has a feature where you can move pins from one board to another. So that is exactly what I did. I moved the ones that he wanted to do and a few I know he needs now to this current board for this year. He picked some amazing stuff and I think I am just as excited as he is! I am so happy he asked me about Pinterest and we were able to do this together. If you don't already try asking your kids what they want to do for school sometime? I do it often and the answer always surprises in a good way. :-)

Feel free to follow me or any of my boards on Pinterest.

Invest In Your Homeschooling in 2015

What are you doing fresh for your home school this year?

We invested in a  membership to our local science museum, the Tellus. We are all very excited about this. We have already gone twice and I have already lined up so many unit studies around what we will see and do at the museum. I know he will get so much more out of this then any traditional learning we could do. I definitely don't want to be stuck all year at the kitchen table on the computer or doing worksheets of all things!

 Another great thing about getting a membership to a local museum or other educational source is they often have workshops for kids and special events. You can really make the place your secondary classroom. Usually the investment is not that much, especially if you use mostly free resources like we do for curriculum. This allows us to be able to make this investment, not to mention, that the one we joined is a non-profit so our membership is considered a donation and is tax deductible*. It is a win-win if you ask me!

Would love to hear from others about what your homeschooling is adding new this year? Comment below. Your input might help others homeschooling to get outside of the box.

*Of course, always consult with a qualified accountant.