Have you reviewed this site, for learning piano:

https://app.hoffmanacademy.com/lessons/

I am currently teaching my 6 year old and my 3 year old how to play piano and guitar. We have gone through enough of his videos that I can honestly give his site two strong thumbs up.

As far as I can tell, all his videos are free. If the parent knows enough about music, they can use the free videos to supplement any beginner music curriculum.

I enjoyed his videos enough that I purchased his premium lifetime membership, which comes with workbooks and games. But my kids are young and I haven't made them work through workbooks yet. I'm trying to make it as fun as possible so far.

I have no affiliation with Hoffman Academy. I just think he's a great teacher.

Tons of free content on his site. Justin is a great teacher.

I'm confused by the current approach to schooling in the U.S. As functioning adults, society rewards people who can identify unanswered or poorly solved problems and come up with solutions. Meanwhile education focuses on drilling facts. In formal education, not including extra curriculars, the first time I see learners exposed to unanswered questions is graduate school.

I feel one of the best ways to learn is to practice the thing you are actually going to be doing. It's odd that we never practice answering novel questions. I.E. introducing the unanswered questions of the past, the context that lead us to asking them, and the approaches humans took to solving them. Do you know of any home-school programs that include something like this?

So instead of everyone of every age in the same class or a mentor system, you have everyone of the same age going though the same material every year.

Unfortunately what it tends not to work as well with are students behind their age curve or ahead of their age curve.

It's not plausible that they're all managing to keep it a secret. Someone would have spilled the beans, for example some early 20th century teacher writing a memoir, or something like that.

So, a fair guess is that if it's true, it's an example of a system that has evolved away from its original goals.

I don't think there is some grand conspiracy. I think educators are not willing to go totally against the grain and absolutely throw out everything we do right now and start from scratch. For instance, school time before 9am is insane. Kids need more sleep than that. How about kids can get up and leave the classroom and go to the bathroom or go and eat whenever they want? Do we really need classrooms? Do we need dedicated buildings for school? Do we need schedules? Do all kids really need math, science, history, etc.? Just because we have always done things one way doesn't mean we have to keep doing them that way.

We also don't need conspiracies to explain systems that are badly dysfunctional or have outcomes that are detrimental to society.

Edit: reference: I'm a 10x / unicorn at factory work environments, operating machines, metal fabrication, etc.

I'm going to check-out the Singapore math Live support. It's surprising how challenging it can be to diagnose why one of my kids is struggling with a concept.

Blossom and Root for a more nature-based/hands-on program https://blossomandroot.com/

Torchlight. https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/torchlight

Also Khan App Kids of course https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/khan-app-kids

I think that there are ways to do meaningful social interaction online, but not in the way it's being handled in most places. I think that for this to be successful academics and socialization need to be compartmentalized. We should use zoom for activities like cooking, give kids the opportunity to talk about their day, discuss current events and share feelings, but not for lectures on academic subjects - and these group zooms should be short. There's a big need for innovation in this space, but it's not impossible to create meaningful social interactions online for kids. Alexis Buckley (who is also our is doing incredible work fostering social interactions online with Early Childhood Matters and the Little School. Definitely check out her classes. http://www.earlychildhoodmatters.org/

As you said, there are so many great tools for learning and little evidence that leaning on academics in the early years is even that important (look at the Finnish education system that doesn't start until age 7).

However, the in-person social interaction is the tricky part. We're generally recommending that families focus on building healthy social attachments with their own kids. That's the first and most important bond. And if you have a good relationship with your child, a healthy attachment, that will extend to a group setting. This kind of socialization can also be done by buddying with one other family that's rigorously practicing social distancing. Socialization does not have to happen in a huge group to be impactful.

Happy to chat with you more if I can be of any help whatsoever.

The sight might look dated, but it's a curriculum written by one teacher who you can actually reach via email. My wife and I have looked at a bunch of different math options and this one seems like the best option:

- Mastery-based, with minimal repetition - All instruction is written for students, with no separate materials for parents, so older students can self-teach - Materials are organized by grade level or topic, it's your choice which you use - Can buy printed books (including spiral bound!) or PDFs - Companion instructional videos by the author - Dirt-cheap, probably because it's self-published with a single author

Here's a direct link to one of the sample PDFs for 1st grade: https://www.mathmammoth.com/preview/Math_Mammoth_Grade1A_Sam...

(There's no kinder materials because all they're typically expected to do in is be able to count, identify shapes, etc.)

This also looked interesting, but it's definitely a more involved curriculum with lesson separate scripted lesson plans:

https://rightstartmath.com/our-curriculum/the-rightstart-dif...

The plus for this one is that it's heavy on manipulation (using playing cards and an abacus) and light on counting and repetition.

Took a quick glance and I wonder why you have Beast Academy under Autistic kids and not for generic Math curriculum.

You best believe I just bookmarked your site. I can't wait to show my wife