Family AI Garden
A little more about our Family’s AI Garden
This began as a place for my daughter to practice her second-grade spelling at a Jeffco elementary school. Our current spelling activities focus on second-grade words. Children and families are welcome to explore at their own pace. As our Garden grows, we plan to add activities for other interests and learning levels.
I began this project as a curious father learning about AI. I wanted to see what we could create with mindfulness and care: taking time, checking our work, and listening to the children who use it. Our Family’s AI Garden is a place to keep learning and growing together.
What guides the learning?
Your child's current word list, teacher's directions, and classroom examples come first. District guidance and the sources below help inform our work; they do not replace your child's lessons. The Garden is not endorsed by the school or district.
We use education research to guide our choices and link to the sources so you can explore them too. We want children to enjoy playing and use what they practice beyond the game. Our activities have not yet been tested as a learning program.
Reading and spelling
- IES: Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade
This teaching guide supports linking speech sounds with letters, working with word parts, and writing and recognizing words. It informs our word practice. It does not test Catalie’s Word Trail, its kittens, or its game mechanics.
Catalie’s Word Trail brings a supplied spelling list into five ways to play. Each pack keeps its own words, clues, meanings, and recordings. The newest weekly list opens first. Earlier weeks and a mix of all weeks remain available to choose.
Mathematics sources for Garden activities
- Jeffco mathematics
District mathematics curriculum context. This is not the source of the spelling list or evidence that Catalie’s Word Trail improves spelling.
- Singapore NIE: concrete, pictorial, abstract
Connect things we can handle, pictures and mathematical symbols. This course describes an approach; it is not a trial of our games.
- IES: elementary mathematics intervention
A guide for teaching children who need extra support. Its evidence comes from teaching settings, not from testing this website.
- Project LEAP: early algebra
Research into patterns, equal quantities and relationships. Evidence differs by age and study. A new game needs its own checks.
After playing, you might try a word in a new sentence together, or ask what your child enjoyed. Certificates are a little celebration of taking part, with help and retries welcome. Print one for the fridge, a folder, or simply for fun.
Privacy comes first. You can play without an account, and your child’s answers stay in this browser.
What stays on this device?
Play needs no account. The spelling app remembers a round only when you choose to save it in this browser. You can forget a saved round. Reading and language choices can also stay in this browser. Certificate names are not saved. Browser settings or clearing site data can remove saved progress.
The app has no score uploads, advertising or analytics scripts. Opening a website still sends ordinary page requests to its host. Following a source link opens that organization's website.
Catalie’s Time Checker keeps a plan only when you choose Save on this device. Page appearance choices are remembered separately; Remember my look saves the scene and its look. These choices stay in this browser; another device or website address has its own saves.
Catalie’s Wonder Kitties keeps practice only when you choose Save this visit. Resume saved practice opens it in this browser. Forget saved practice removes that save. Another device or website address has its own saves.
The context and memory credit below describes how this project was created. The learning activities do not send children's answers or progress to an AI service.
Questions and help
These answers began with questions from families. Choose a question to read more.
Why does the cube appear without travelling from the elephants?
The Garden follows your device’s motion setting and its own Keep everything still choice. Either can stop the moving effects. Choosing Garden or Playful does not override your device’s setting.
If you want to see the cube travel:
- On a Samsung Galaxy phone, open Settings → Accessibility → Visibility enhancements → Remove animations. Turn Remove animations off. You can also search Settings for “Remove animations”. Menu names can vary by phone and software version.
- Return to the Garden in the same browser and refresh the page.
- Open Garden choices and select Garden to clear its saved still setting.
- Return to the garden and choose Replay the cube.
If you prefer less motion, keep that setting. You can choose Receive the cube and enter without watching the transfer.
If these steps do not help, make a note below with your device, browser, what you tried and what happened. The absence of a reduced-motion notice does not always mean the device allows motion.
Write a note about the cube and motionWhat changes when I choose Thai?
Choosing Thai changes the help language while keeping Catalie’s Word Trail open and retaining the current activity. The spelling words stay in English.
If something unexpected happens when you change the language, tell us what you chose and what appeared. You can add your device and browser below.
Write a note about choosing ThaiSomething to share?
Make a note about something confusing, something wrong, a problem or an idea. Ask a grown-up to help. Choose Submit to save your note in our private inbox.
Choose a related answer below, or start a new question. When we receive a report, we check it before adding or correcting an answer. Private messages do not appear here automatically.
When you choose Submit, your note and any optional reply email are saved in the Garden’s private website inbox. We also send a copy to our Proton Mail inbox so we can read and reply. If email is delayed, the website copy stays saved. Messages stay until we remove them. Please leave out children’s names and school documents. Your draft stays in this open page when the panel closes; it is not saved on your device.
Email the Garden:
Your email app opens a draft to hello@familyaigarden.com. Check that your whole note is there, then choose Send in that app. If no email app opens, copy the note and paste it into an email to this address.