
Ask HN: Something like Khan Academy but full curriculum for grade schoolers? - jmspring
Khan Academy continually gets held up as a great resource for online courses across the age spectrum for math related subjects.  With the continuing pandemic continuing to grow in the US and schools not really sure how to handle things, the GF and I are looking into other options.<p>Is there a recommended resource that gives unbiased (as possible) reviews for middle school (7-8th grade) curriculum?  Searching these days really doesn&#x27;t bring up quality, just options one has to comb through.
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actfrench
I'm a teacher with 15 years of experience and an edtech entrepreneur. I've
reviewed thousands of secular homeschool programs for accuracy and quality.
We're working on developing unbiased reviews of all of our favorites, but here
are a few great all-in-one programs to get you started. All mastery-based, all
secular and aligned with state standards. In general, these also combine
hands-on projects with online learning, involve little to no prep time and
minimal parent involvement in learning, with some element of personalization.

Critical Thinking Co [https://www.modulo.app/all-
resources/criticalthinkingco](https://www.modulo.app/all-
resources/criticalthinkingco)

Oak Meadow [https://www.modulo.app/all-
resources/oakmeadow](https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/oakmeadow)

Time4Learning [https://www.modulo.app/all-
resources/time4learning](https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/time4learning)

Moving Beyond the Page [https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/moving-beyond-
the-page](https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/moving-beyond-the-page)

It's usually good to supplement with a math program, if your child is gifted
or has special needs. Here is a review I wrote on what I consider to be the
best math programs out there for parents doing learning from home.
[https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/the-best-math-
programs-...](https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/the-best-math-programs-for-
home-educators)

And here are my 50 favorites:) [https://www.modulo.app/all-
resources/50favorites](https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/50favorites)

I would also be happy to give free advice to you (or any family reading this)
for your particular situation. Feel free to reach out to me via my website if
you'd like more personalized recommendations and we can find a time to chat:)
[https://www.modulo.app/](https://www.modulo.app/)

~~~
mahaganapati
Do you have resources for religious curriculum as opposed to secular? We are
Hindu but I have had good luck relating with Christian resources

~~~
truth_be_told
I am curious; what exactly do you mean by "religious curriculum" ? As a Hindu
myself, i know of only the traditional "Gurukuls/Patashalas".

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Toyentrepreneur
I've done a lot of research on this topic, the short answer to your question
is [https://artofproblemsolving.com/](https://artofproblemsolving.com/)

But during my research I came across the idea of "Computational Math/Thinking"
which throws away the entire concept of learning Math/Science in the normal
order

Pre Algebra > Algebra I > Geometry > Algebra II > Trig > etc

It takes more of a real life problem solving approach, which I understand
isn't exactly innovative in and of itself but prioritizes using the computer
for the calculation part of math.

Of course the process of using a pencil and paper to calculate an equation in
probably 90% of the work in traditional curriculum. When you outsource this
tedious part to software (like you would in real life) that leaves room for
setting up bigger problems that literally cannot be calculated by hand.

[https://www.computerbasedmath.org/](https://www.computerbasedmath.org/) is a
great resource for more info on this "computational" education

~~~
justinpombrio
Also along these lines is the Bootstrap curriculum:
[https://www.bootstrapworld.org/](https://www.bootstrapworld.org/)

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krsmith35
Prenda (YC S19) has a full curriculum with support and tools for the parents,
k-8. More info here: [https://prendaschool.com/prenda-
family](https://prendaschool.com/prenda-family)

~~~
codingdave
> While we believe in the power of microchools

I'm forgiving of typos and such things, but as you are marketing a school, you
might want to check your spelling.

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tmaly
Ed Hirsh Jr has these guides What Your ___ grader needs to know. I know I have
seen it up to 6th grade, but I am not sure if there is a version for 7th and
8th.

My daughter uses ixl.com at school and it covers all the way up to 12th grade.
Its is essentially adaptive learning. So this is good for doing practice
problems. All the topics listed there are ones kids are expected to know for
the respective grade level. So you could use this as a map.

I have also been supplementing her education with workbooks. I have a few
other ideas to make some practical learning lessons with electronics and
chemistry. We already do Scratch programming.

~~~
csa
I have a love-hate relationship with the Hirsch books:

1\. Much (all?) of the content covers topics that are useful to know, imho.

2\. The whole idea of just spamming content is an incredibly reductionist
approach to education. There is much more to learn out there.

3\. Hirsch’s approaches to cultural literacy are tough for some folks to
follow. On the surface, it sounds very oppressive. A slightly deeper look
would say that it is a realist approach. A deep academic look would say that
it misses a lot of what is probably possible in education and is focused on
looking back rather than looking forward.

I do recommend folks check out his books and see if it floats your boat, but I
also recommend that they don’t assume that they are complete as is in terms of
what kids actually need to learn and know.

------
rhema
I would check in with a local homeschooling Facebook group for 1-on-1 support.
We've been homeschooling our kids. The 7 and 9 year old use Kahn Academy for
math, which works really well. They also have grammar options they have
started.

My opinion is that a "complete" education through 8th grade is a nebulous
goal. Reading, writing, math, history, art, life experiences, etc. are
important.

~~~
cheez
Also homeschooling, also not trying to compete with academics for "complete"
education.

I try to make sure all aspects of the person are engaged:

\- Creativity

\- Intelligence

\- Athleticism

\- Philosophizing

\- Failing well (edit: aka encouraging ambitious goals)

\- Exposure to novel things

Kids direct themselves, I help them find resources and help them stay on
track.

For example, to think (philosophize) well, you need history. But not just the
history from the perspective of the victors. Not just what is "accepted"
truth.

We read history books that are not really covered in curriculum (Mongols,
Islam, China, India). We cover religions. We watch Ancient Aliens and talk
about what obvious explanations they are missing.

But I would have never gone down this path for them had I not stopped going to
high school myself, because it was a fucking nightmare.

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pathikritb
Students (pre-junior / senior year of high school for simplicity) need active
role models in school and at home for appropriate overall development. The
role models are typically teachers in school and parents at home.

That students are struggling to engage with digital content during home
quarantine is expected. The good news is that students will adapt to digital
content with time (within twelve months as a simple estimate), as unlike
adults, they are more likely to normalize their behavior towards this
environment and make it the routine for their education. The bad news is that
no digital curriculum alone can replicate the classroom learning environment
(even with its obvious systematic flaws) because mastery of learning content
is a function of the learning environment as much as individual student
motivation (until these students become independent learners). So parents
homeschooling their children need to become more active role models for their
children. The positive of this situation is that educated and empathetic
parents can do a much better job of developing a secure environment for
children than a classroom with thirty students and a cacophony of technology.
The long-term mission for homeschooling parents is to develop “self-directed
learners”, and the first step is understanding, practicing, and celebrating
“metacognition”.

I will share this link, for core science experiential learning lessons,
primarily for middle school students, which may complement textbook content,
associated with the concepts:
[https://science60.com/homeschooling](https://science60.com/homeschooling)

Good teachers and motivated parents can make any learning content work, from
traditional textbooks to Khan Academy lessons.

------
gregd
We homeschool our children and we also help run a homeschool academy. A lot of
the kids love Outschool.

~~~
localhost
My wife is thinking about teaching on Outschool. What has been your experience
with Outschool teachers, and what were the criteria for choosing a teacher?

~~~
gregd
All of the kids in our Academy have reported nothing but positive experiences
with Outschool and really enjoy the courses. It's the first place we all look
when augmenting their schooling outside of our Academy. If any of the various
teachers had been bad, we would have heard about it. I can't speak to the
selection criteria, only the perspective of students.

------
2pointsomone
Look at EngageNY curriculum (which is really EL Education, Public Consulting
Group, Eureka Math, Illustrative Math and a couple of other providers put
together). It is pretty excellent, and free! You can also find curriculum from
these individual providers separately.

Then, visit OpenUpResources. Same theme.

EdReports.org has curriculum reviewed to align with Common Core.

The above are mostly limited to ELA and Math, for Science, there is OpenSciEd,
SCALE/SFUSD Middle School Curriculum, and Mystery Science, for Civics there is
Annenberg Classroom, and rest of the social studies, I know some effort is
going on, but can't quite remember where the curriculum might be.

The reason I know these is because I run opencurriculum.org (YC W14), and we
are trying to bring this information under one roof.

~~~
cynicalloner
I'm an engineer at Illustrative Mathematics. Here's what I know: Eureka Math
is derived from EngageNY. Illustrative Mathematics is an openly licensed,
freely available curriculum which was developed independently from EngageNY.
You can learn more about it at
[http://curriculum.illustrativemathematics.org](http://curriculum.illustrativemathematics.org).

~~~
2pointsomone
Thank you for the wonderful work you do, cynicalloner!

~~~
cynicalloner
Thanks! Cynical I may be but I do love our mission at IM.

And I'll just leave this here because at work we were all laughing our heads
off about it. We joked about hiring the author to write practice problems for
us. ;-)

[https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-broken-lives-
behind-...](https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-broken-lives-behind-the-
illustrative-math-word-problems).

------
dc2019
My kids are younger than yours, so I can't say too much about curriculum for
grades 7/8\. But having spent quite a bit of time in homeschooling groups
during the lockdown (we are not homeschooling but had to supplement), I've
noticed these curriculums get discussed a lot.

For language arts: Michael Clay Thompson (we are using this), Brave Writer,
IEW. For maths, Beast Academy or Art of Problem Solving for your kids (we are
also using this, huge fan, great for full-time homeschooling or after school
supplements in my opinion), Saxon Maths (mixed reviews). Science takes more
sifting since quite a few are religious.

I noted all the programs I came across (mostly through mentions in
homeschooling groups) in a list in case it's interesting to anyone
([https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/132lzqsfGzUvo7iPGrvBN...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/132lzqsfGzUvo7iPGrvBNiTh3fR9riULQ8K_gMJK7p8k/edit?usp=sharing)),
do filter for subject and age to get the relevant entries. It's work in
progress so excuse the mess.

------
westurner
K12 CS Framework (ACM, Code.org, [...])
[https://k12cs.org/](https://k12cs.org/)

Computing Curricula 2020 (ACM, IEEE,)
[http://www.cc2020.net/](http://www.cc2020.net/)

Official SAT Practice (College Board, Khan Academy)
[https://www.khanacademy.org/sat](https://www.khanacademy.org/sat)

[http://wrdrd.github.io/docs/consulting/software-
development#...](http://wrdrd.github.io/docs/consulting/software-
development#computer-science-curricula) (TODO: add link to cc2020 draft)

Programmer Competency Matrix: [http://sijinjoseph.com/programmer-competency-
matrix/](http://sijinjoseph.com/programmer-competency-matrix/) ,
[https://competency-checklist.appspot.com/](https://competency-
checklist.appspot.com/) , [https://github.com/hltbra/programmer-competency-
checklist](https://github.com/hltbra/programmer-competency-checklist)

Re: Computational thinking
[https://westurner.github.io/hnlog/#comment-15454421](https://westurner.github.io/hnlog/#comment-15454421)

Coding Interview University: [https://github.com/jwasham/coding-interview-
university](https://github.com/jwasham/coding-interview-university)

------
cvhashim
I’m not sure about a full course. But I have a younger sibling going into 8th
grade. He’s been doing learning on IXL to supplement his education this
summer. It offers different subjects like math, language/literature, science
etc. He’ll do that for 2-3 hours on weekdays.

~~~
dsr_
As far as I can tell, the Math IXL system was designed to make people hate
math.

Open-answer questions rarely specify the answer format, and will thus accept
only one of 0.5, 0.50, .5, 1/2, 4/8 ... etc while rejecting all the rest. Then
the next question will not keep the same format.

Points for correct answers add to your score, but not linearly; points for
incorrect answers subtract from your score, but not linearly.

Endlessly frustrating.

~~~
geephroh
I..am..so..with..you.

IXL is absolute garbage, as should be expected from any Pearson product. And
the morons at Seattle Public Schools are dumping money into that dumpster fire
like it's going out of style.

~~~
bookdrop
IXL engineer here. We're not a Pearson product.

------
gmoore
[https://www.k12.com/](https://www.k12.com/)

~~~
SrslyJosh
We tried this and had to drop it after ~4 months because it was painful to run
it as a parent and boring AF for our son.

It's designed to keep kids _and_ parents busy for ~8 hours a day, because
their customers are online charter schools, _not_ homeschooling parents.

These online charters get paid based on attendance, so it's in their interest
to have kids occupied all day every day.

Please, do not ever use K12. It's terrible.

~~~
codingdave
We've tried a bit of homeschooling over the years, and there is an important
difference between what looks good to parents and covers the required
standards, etc.... vs. what actually engages our children and makes them
satisfied with their educational experience.

We never tried K12, but I recommend that the kids be involved in selecting
what tools to use, as they are the ones who have to use it every day.

------
meeshmercer
I agree that Khan Academy is great for math. For a full middle school (and
high school) accredited curriculum, you might check out Apex Learning Virtual
School [https://www.apexlearningvs.com](https://www.apexlearningvs.com). They
offer live teaching and tutoring support, self-paced learning and a flexible
schedule.

------
vulcan01
I realise that your child isn't there yet, but once they reach high school,
I'd recommend that you introduce them to edX, where there are tons of courses
on practically everything, taught by college professors. It can help them
expand their knowledge in areas they're interested in that aren't in the
standard school curricula. It's pretty awesome (high school student here).

[https://www.edx.org](https://www.edx.org)

------
underwear
My kids go to a microschool in Washington DC. They are developing a full
curriculum with the idea that you learn from the resources around you
(specific to your town city). They have developed an APP with weekly menus for
the kids. During COVID thay crushed it, kids 4 ids learned more in three
months than they have in a year. great for travel too www.mysaschool.org

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niekmaas
Perhaps aimed at a lower age group, but I think
[https://www.e-learningforkids.org/](https://www.e-learningforkids.org/)
should also be mentioned. They provide free primary school education for all
kids. Currently mostly focused on math though.

~~~
webwanderings
Great resource. Glad to have stumbled upon it.

------
elxavicio
Not for grade schoolers, but I just started this program
([https://busytoddler.com/](https://busytoddler.com/)) for my 3-year-old.
Gives you a lot of ideas and a specific schedule to follow which helps a lot!

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idoh
I have been looking for this as well. So far Khan Academy has been brilliant
in remote math curriculum, in fact my children are learning math faster in
Khan Academy than with IRL instruction. If there was something equivalent for
writing I'd be over the moon happy.

~~~
actfrench
For composition, try [https://bravewriter.com/](https://bravewriter.com/) For
handwriting, try [https://www.lwtears.com/](https://www.lwtears.com/)

------
ParatusPlayer1
Not quite what you are asking for, but there is a great tool called Kickstand
(www.kickstandsystems.com)that is in use in a number of districts that allows
curriculum to be aligned with standards and organized in a defined scope and
sequence. At the core of the systems is a big standards aligned curriculum
library. The system will deliver content to a student and then assess them on
that content. Based on the result of the assessment the system can deliver new
resources for remediation or allow the student to move ahead at their own
pace. Content is managed by the district and allows content ratings by
students and instructors. This is really where learning technology needs to go
to enable individualized instruction in online settings at scale. Full
disclosure: I wrote the first version of the Kickstand product about 5-6 yrs
ago

------
homeschooldad
You might find [https://JoinPrisma.com](https://JoinPrisma.com) to be an
interesting option if you’re looking for both curriculum and the support of a
qualified teacher.

------
MattGaiser
This would be an excellent open source project for those outside the software
space.

~~~
mathnmusic
This is one of the things I'm trying to solve for at
[https://learnawesome.org](https://learnawesome.org) . And yes, it is open-
source. Need more users to start contributing though.

~~~
hobofan
If it's open source, then why do you have to login to see a sylabus?

~~~
mathnmusic
I wanted to encourage people to join and start contributing to the repository.
Started a discussion on this question here: [https://github.com/learn-
awesome/learn/issues/79#issuecommen...](https://github.com/learn-
awesome/learn/issues/79#issuecomment-656849674)

Feel free to suggest more ideas to make it a vibrant learning community.

------
notRobot
Crash course:
[https://youtube.com/user/crashcourse/playlists](https://youtube.com/user/crashcourse/playlists)

------
lanecwagner
I'm actively building a solution for programming related content, with the
goal being that courses feel like games:

[https://qvault.io](https://qvault.io)

------
intrepidhero
[https://cathyduffyreviews.com/](https://cathyduffyreviews.com/) is a resource
that my wife likes for curriculum reviews.

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organicfigs
IXL Learning [https://www.ixl.com/](https://www.ixl.com/)

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j45
Yes, there is a lot like this out there.

The question I would have for you is what state are you looking for? Thanks.

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edu-marian
What's your opinion on educational games?

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aok1425
Maybe junilearning.com?

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jbanfill
ck12.com has a full range of textbooks available at no cost

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mahaganapati
Girlfriend and you have children together? You should get married :)

~~~
bityard
I couldn't imagine a less off-topic and unwelcome comment if I tried.

~~~
maxeonyx
How about this one. I think you meant to say "I couldn't imagine a _more_ off-
topic and unwelcome [...]"

