We homeschool. Math is the subject where that gets hard.
Not because there aren't resources. There are a million of them. The problem is retention. We reviewed fractions a lot last year, and it went in one ear and out the other. Doing more of the same wasn't going to fix that.
So we built him a math class.
First, Find Out Where He Actually Is
Before building anything, we gave him a placement test. Not to grade him, to measure him. The test was silent on purpose: no hints, no "correct!", no AI help. Just questions.
I took it myself first, as a test run. I also had opinions.
What I Believe About Math
I don't expect my son to ever memorize the formula for slope. I expect him to know it exists, be able to look it up fast, and use it to solve the problem. That's how math works in real life.
Same with calculators. If the arithmetic isn't the point of the question, he gets a calculator. Hand arithmetic is for everyday skills: fractions, percents, order of operations. With kind numbers.
So every question comes with a formula reference, and the test checks whether he can use a formula, not whether he can recall one.
Fifteen Minutes
The first plan was thirty minutes a day. I cut it to fifteen, five days a week.
He'll actually try if it's short. A focused fifteen minutes beats a resentful thirty. Yes, it's slower. I'll take slower and real over faster and fake.
Each day is a few review questions from earlier skills, then one new skill: a how-to card, a diagram, one video, and practice that's marked instantly.
How We Fixed "One Ear Out the Other"
Two ideas, both old, both proven:
Spaced review. Every day includes old questions at growing gaps: a day, three days, a week, two weeks, a month. A skill counts as learned when he gets it right three times in a row. It counts as kept when he gets it right cold after a month. Miss it, and it comes back sooner.
Mixed sets. Once he has a few skills, the questions get shuffled. He has to pick the right tool, not just repeat the last one he learned. Kids love to find one method and use it for everything. Mixed sets break that habit.
The AI Never Makes Up the Numbers
This was the most important design rule, and it's the one most "AI tutors" get wrong.
The AI decides what to say. Code decides the numbers. Every diagram is drawn by code, from the question's own numbers, so the triangle on the screen is the triangle in the problem. The answer is computed, not generated.
Videos work the same way. One per skill, from a list I checked by hand. Never a link the AI came up with on the spot. AI-invented YouTube links go dead, or worse, go somewhere you didn't want your kid to go.
The Tablet
He works on a computer with a mouse and keyboard. Drawing a triangle with a mouse is miserable. So we have an old touchscreen tablet next to him that acts as his scratch pad. It shows the current question, he works it out by hand, and his strokes show up live on the computer and get saved with his answer.
When a new question comes up, the pad clears. No setup, no app to open.
The Teacher
Next comes the teacher. Every question gets an "ask the teacher" box, so he can ask why, get a hint, or see the idea explained a different way.
She's a separate personality from the AI that runs the house, and she's always labeled. She's patient, clear, and never pretends to be a person. She sees the question, the diagram, what he typed, and the right answer, with one rule: lead him to it, never hand it over. If he asks straight out, she works a similar example with different numbers.
My son named her himself. He asked an AI for a random woman's name and got Maya. So she's Ms. Maya.
Is It Working?
Too early to say. Ask me in the spring.
But once Ms. Maya is live, every question he asks her gets saved, and those questions will be the best signal I've ever had of where he's actually stuck. Not where a curriculum thinks he should be. Where he actually is.
That's the thing AI really changes in homeschool. Not the content. There's endless content. It's that I can finally build the class around one kid.