Homeschool resources - got anything good?

[One Bad Pig]

So, it's the time of year for my wife and I to start looking into what we want to use to teach our 7-year old in homeschool. The most popular resources seem to be Abeka, BJU, and ACE, but they all come from a fundamentalist Protestant perspective, and that's not the perspective I want for her education. We used a mix of Abeka and Spectrum this past year, more or less, but we were fumbling our way through and starting late. I'm hearing good things about Horizons Math, but it stops at 6th grade.

Any input is appreciated.

[The Melody Maker]

I was going to suggest something like Penn Foster which offers a bunch of online courses including the core high school essentials, since years ago I took some courses from their Canadian equivalent ICS which appears to have gotten some of their material from Penn Foster. But maybe it's a bit too soon for someone still in elementary. Nonetheless, it was the only idea I had and thought I'd mention it anyway hoping it might be useful to you.

[Juvenal]

I've been recommending Khan Academy for years for my college math students, but they offer curricula all the way down to pre-K across multiple disciplines. I've played around some with their AI-enhancement Khanmigo, too, since I read this OpEd in February:

An ‘education legend’ has created an AI that will change your mind about AI
.

By infusing GPT with its own database of lesson plans, essays and sample problems, Khan Academy improved accuracy and reduced hallucinations. The full archive of Khan Academy math problems is now baked into GPT — “Our service to the broader AI community,” says Khan. But that still left a ton of work to do around interactivity. Khan and a small team provided hundreds of hours of feedback, gently retraining GPT to be less of a know-it-all that spits out answers, and more of a patient and knowledgeable companion. Like, say, Sal Khan.

The result is Khanmigo, a safe and accurate tutor, built atop ChatGPT, that works at the skill level of its users — and never coughs up answers. Khanmigo is the best model we have for how to develop and implement AI for the public good. It’s also the first AI software I’m excited for my kids to use.

That blurbable sentence would mean more if the current state of educational software weren’t so atrocious. Parents who’ve ever tried to help their kids with homework know the pain — janky interfaces, impoverished user experiences, word problems that appear to have been translated from another language. Imagine that Microsoft’s Clippy opened a schoolhouse on AOL and you have some idea.

I told the Khanmigo bot I was rusty at algebra (true!), and it presented me with sample problems that escalated in complexity. The focus was entirely on getting the steps in the process right. When I took a poor guess, it said, “Hmm, not quite. Remember, we want to isolate Z on one side of the equation. To do this, we should first try to get rid of the ‘+8’ on the left side. What operation could we use to do that?” The voice was Socratic, enthusiastic but firm — until my 15-year-old daughter kicked me off and told Khanmigo to speak more like a teenager. “Okay, fam, let’s grind through these next problems.” She did not cringe, which might be Khanmigo’s greatest achievement.

The founder, Sal Khan, is something of a legend.

[rogue06]

From a Google search for orthodox home schooling


Orthodox Home Schooling light on resources, mostly general recommendations.

Orthodox Youth Directors in North America: Orthodox Schooling mostly about establishing Orthodox schools but has a section on home schooling as well

Parousia Press: Homeschooling Resources for Orthodox Families self-explanatory, lots of links

ILLUMINATION LEARNING: Parents’ Guide for Orthodox Christian Homeschooling similar to above

Saint Emmelia Ministries: Orthodox Christian Homeschooling seems to be more like a support group but could still be useful

Saint Kosmas Orthodox Christian Education Association: Have Faith EXAMINING HOMESCHOOLING & COMPULSORY STATE EDUCATION not sure if they have what you're looking for, seems more of a promotion for home schooling.