When I launched AI Safety For Parents, I said I had built three products and that the other two might surprise you. Here is number two.
I basically built a virtual school.
Today I am launching Rez0’s Rascals, a K-5 learning app for homeschool, co-op, and hybrid-school families. It puts the daily lesson plan, 11 subjects, progress tracking, printables, stories, and rewards in one place.
This is a little different from hacking APIs for a living. :P
Why I built it
I am a dad of three, and I spend a lot of time thinking about how kids learn. I also think about how much of childhood we are willing to trade for more screen time.
I think the ideal school day is one where a kid can do two or three focused hours of real academic work, understand what they were doing, and then get off the screen. Mastery matters more than sitting in a chair for a certain number of hours. Childhood should still happen away from the screen.
Most learning apps handle one small part of the day. One app does math. Another does reading. A parent tracks progress somewhere else, finds printable work somewhere else, and slowly becomes the IT department, the teacher, the human resources, the cook and the principal.
I wanted one app that could handle the bulk of the school day without turning the parent into a full-time curriculum coordinator.
What is inside
Rascals has more than 750 lessons across 11 subjects for grades K-5. There are over 600 linked videos from high quality sources like Khan Academy. The lessons use more than 30 interactive widgets, so kids build, sort, type, drag, match, read, and solve things. It does not feel like clicking through a worksheet slideshow.
Each kid gets a daily lesson plan based on their schedule and subjects. A child can work at a different grade in math than in reading, because that is how actual kids work. Parents can use a guided mode for a focused daily queue or open the full subject library for free learning.
The parent console shows progress, time by subject, attendance, and where a kid may be getting stuck. It also has homeschool paperwork for some states, custom printable worksheets, coloring pages, and a parent advisor.
Kids earn Rascal Cards, build streaks, read illustrated stories, and can practice typing by racing the characters. There is no social feed, no leaderboard, and no kid-to-kid messaging. I have no interest in building another reason for children to compare themselves to strangers online.
The AI part
Otto is the yellow inventor Rascal and the AI coach inside the app. He can explain a lesson, ask questions, and give hints. He will not simply hand a kid the answer.
That part is important. I want AI to help kids think, not do the thinking for them.
The parent tools use AI differently. A parent can make a worksheet for a specific skill, generate a coloring page, or ask about a learner’s progress. The AI stays attached to a clear job. It is not an unsupervised chatbot pretending to be a child’s best friend.
The most personal thing I have built
I built the first version around helping my kids stay sharp for the summer. Then, because I am apparently incapable of doing anything halfway, it grew into hundreds of lessons, placement assessments, a story library, collectible cards, parent reports, and five weird little characters with backstories.
At some point it stopped feeling like a side project and started feeling like an entire elearning platform. I have spent the last few months building it, testing it, and making sure it is safe, fun, and useful. I have been using it with my own kids for a while now, and they love it.
The best part is that I can add upgrades any time.
Try it
Rez0’s Rascals is live now. It is $20 per child each month, with every part of the app included and a 14-day free trial.
If you homeschool, use a co-op, have a child in a hybrid program, or know a family looking for a better way to run the school day, I would love for you to try it or send it to them.
Most people know me for finding the ways software breaks. This time I tried to build something that makes a school day work better. I am proud of it.
- Joseph
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