At Home Middle School offers free, online, secular courses for grades six through eight that utilize web resources and require other books only for literature for the language arts courses. Daily schedules provide lessons for about 180 days for two-semester courses, and its daily lessons in each subject should take 30 to 60 minutes.
Two-semester courses are available for language arts, social studies, math, and science for all three grade levels. Two-semester electives in Spanish and Coding are offered, but the same course is offered for all three grades. A one-semester course on chess and short courses on poetry, creative writing, and “Artists Who Changed the World” are also available, but these too are the same courses for all three grades.
Sixth graders study Life Science and Ancient Civilizations & Geography for social studies. Seventh graders study Earth Science and World History & Geography. Eighth graders study Physical Science and U.S. History & Geography.
Course material has been curated by Melissa Caldwell, using videos and lessons from sources such as TedEd, Khan Academy, Crash Course, Math Antics, The History Channel, Geography Now!, Duolingo, Code for Life, and open-source history and science textbooks.
Lesson plans vary in design from course to course, but they generally integrate videos, video lessons, reading assignments, questions to answer, and writing assignments. Sometimes complete lessons, units, and even complete courses are used from sources like Khan Academy or online (open-source) textbooks.
Language arts and social studies courses use a huge variety of resources. The language arts courses each use several novels, teach extensive literary analysis, and have many writing assignments, including several that are lengthy. Social studies courses use open-source textbooks as the spine and then add many videos and websites to reinforce and expand learning.
Science courses use the open-source CK-12 online textbooks, which include their own videos, lab activities, and questions. The At Home Middle School lesson plans schedule the course elements, except for lab work, leaving it as optional.
The math courses rely primarily on Khan Academy courses, but they include links to many other videos that provide more explanation and fun activities. If students do not like Khan Academy’s presentation, CK-12’s online math courses are suggested as an alternative.
Some of the linked resources (e.g., Khan Academy) include questions that are automatically evaluated by those programs. Questions presented in the At Home Middle School lesson plans provide space to type in answers, some of which will be a paragraph or more in length. The At Home Middle School platform does not track or retain student work, and there are no answer keys for the questions presented there. Courses alert students to this, advising them to copy and save these responses elsewhere if parents want to retain them. Science and math courses might have sufficient links to other programs that evaluate questions and track student progress, but the other courses definitely do not.
In response to my concern about the lack of answer keys, Melissa Caldwell replied,
At Home Middle School was designed for parents to work alongside their children, especially in courses like language arts, social studies, and Spanish, where open-ended questions require discussion or subjective grading.
For parents who are pressed for time, I suggest using free AI tools like ChatGPT or Gemini as an optional shortcut to help with answers. Grading is meant to be flexible so families can adapt it to their situation.
Even with this explanation, the lack of answer keys will be problematic for homeschool parents who want students to complete most of their work independently.
The viewpoint throughout these courses is secular and is unlikely to suit those looking for curricula compatible with a Judeo-Christian worldview. This is reflected in several ways that matter in varying degrees to different families, such as literary choices that are a little edgy or deal with magic or the occult (e.g., The Hunger Games, The Outsiders, The Golden Compass, and The Egypt Game); evolution taught in both sixth- and seventh-grade science; and sixth-grade social studies that teaches that humans developed from earlier hominids.
Summary
At Home Middle School provides the core subject curriculum for free in a well-designed platform, offering a worthwhile option for those seeking a secular curriculum. The variety of learning resources included in the lesson plans and multisensory delivery make the courses engaging for students.