Homeschool math curriculum is expensive. Most of the popular programs — Saxon Math, Teaching Textbooks, Math-U-See, Singapore Math — cost between $200 and $500 per year per child. If you're homeschooling multiple kids across different grade levels, you're looking at a significant chunk of your annual education budget going to math alone.
But here's something the curriculum companies don't want you to know: free math resources have gotten genuinely good. Not "good for free" — actually good. Khan Academy alone covers more math content with better adaptive practice than many programs families pay hundreds for. Combined with a few other free tools, you can build a complete middle school math curriculum that costs nothing, aligns to Common Core standards, and provides the practice and assessment your child needs.
This guide explains what a complete math curriculum needs, reviews the best free resources, and shows how to combine them into a coherent program. It also covers the common mistakes homeschool parents make with math and how to know if your child is on track.
What a Complete Middle School Math Curriculum Needs
Before evaluating free resources, it helps to know what you're building. A complete math curriculum has five components. Most paid programs bundle these together. When building from free resources, you'll pull each component from the tool that does it best.
1. Scope and Sequence
This is the plan for what to teach and in what order. Middle school math builds on itself — you can't teach proportional reasoning before fractions, or linear equations before expressions. A good scope and sequence ensures topics are introduced in the right order and that prerequisite skills are in place before moving on.
2. Instruction
Someone has to explain the concepts. In a traditional school, that's the teacher. In homeschool, it might be you, a video, a textbook, or a combination. The instruction component teaches the "why" and "how" behind each topic.
3. Practice
Understanding a concept and being able to apply it reliably are two different things. Practice builds fluency. The best practice is adaptive — it gives more problems in areas where the student is weak and fewer in areas they've mastered. This is where most free resources shine, because digital tools can provide unlimited adaptive practice at zero cost.
4. Assessment
You need to periodically check whether your child has actually learned the material. This doesn't have to mean formal tests — it can be a diagnostic quiz, a project, or even a conversation. But you need some way to verify understanding before moving on.
5. Progress Tracking
Over the course of a year, you need to know where your child stands relative to grade-level expectations. Which topics have they mastered? Which need more work? Are they on track to be ready for the next grade level? A good tracking system answers these questions without requiring you to maintain a detailed spreadsheet.
Best Free Homeschool Math Resources
1. Khan Academy — Best for Instruction and Scope
Khan Academy is the closest thing to a complete free math curriculum that exists. It provides video instruction for every topic, organized by grade level and aligned to Common Core standards. The mastery system tracks progress by topic and won't let students move forward until they've demonstrated proficiency. The "Get Ready" courses are designed specifically for reviewing prerequisite skills before the next grade level.
For homeschool, Khan Academy handles three of your five curriculum components: scope and sequence (the course structure), instruction (the videos), and basic practice (the exercises). It's the backbone of most successful free homeschool math programs.
Strengths: Comprehensive, well-organized, mastery-based progression, free.
Limitations: The practice is drill-style, not gamified. Many homeschool students find it boring over long periods. The instruction is video-based, which works for some learning styles but not others. And while it tracks mastery, the reporting is basic compared to dedicated tools.
2. Infinilearn — Best for Practice and Engagement
Where Khan Academy provides instruction, Infinilearn provides practice — in a format homeschool students actually want to use. It's a fantasy RPG where students battle monsters and explore the world of Numeria by solving math problems aligned to Common Core standards for grades 6-8.
For homeschool families specifically, three features matter. First, the adaptive difficulty system automatically targets weak areas, which means you don't need to figure out what your child should practice — the game handles it. Second, the RPG format provides intrinsic motivation. Homeschool parents don't have the "everyone else is doing it" social pressure that classroom teachers rely on. You need tools your child will use voluntarily, and a game they enjoy playing solves that problem.
Third, the parent dashboard tracks progress by Common Core standard. You can see which domains your child is mastering (ratios, expressions, geometry, etc.) and which need more attention. This serves as both your progress tracking tool and your diagnostic for deciding what to focus on next. Visit the homeschool page for more on how it fits into a homeschool program.
Strengths: Engaging format, adaptive practice, parent dashboard with per-standard tracking, completely free.
Limitations: Not a full curriculum. It provides practice, not instruction. You'll need a separate resource (like Khan Academy) for teaching new concepts. Covers grades 6-8 only.
3. CK-12 — Best for Free Textbooks and Flexbooks
CK-12 offers free digital textbooks (called "FlexBooks") for middle school math that you can customize. You can rearrange chapters, add your own content, or remove sections that don't apply. The textbooks include explanations, practice problems, and some interactive elements.
Strengths: Customizable, comprehensive, free, good reference material.
Limitations: The interface isn't great. The practice problems are basic (not adaptive). It works better as a reference than as a primary learning tool. Most homeschool parents use it alongside Khan Academy, not as a replacement.
4. GeoGebra — Best for Visual and Interactive Math
GeoGebra is a free math tool that lets students interact with graphs, geometry constructions, and algebraic expressions visually. It's particularly valuable for geometry and graphing topics where static diagrams in a textbook don't convey the concept well. Building a triangle and watching the angles change in real time teaches more about angle relationships than any explanation can.
Strengths: Powerful, free, excellent for conceptual understanding.
Limitations: It's a tool, not a curriculum. You need to know what to do with it. Many homeschool parents find it intimidating. Best paired with specific activities or lessons that guide the exploration.
5. Math Mammoth — Honorable Mention (Not Free, But Affordable)
Math Mammoth isn't free, but at about $40 per grade level, it's worth mentioning as the most affordable complete curriculum. It includes instruction, practice, and assessment in downloadable PDF workbooks. The instruction is clear and conceptual, not just procedural. Many homeschool families use Math Mammoth as their primary curriculum and supplement with free tools for practice.
Price: ~$40 per grade level (one-time purchase, PDF format).
Building a Free Curriculum: The Combination That Works
Here's how to combine free resources into a complete homeschool math program for middle school.
Instruction: Khan Academy
Use Khan Academy's grade-level courses as your primary instruction. Follow the course sequence — it's already organized in a logical progression. When your child hits a new topic, start with the Khan Academy video, then have them work through the associated practice exercises until they reach "mastery" level.
Practice: Infinilearn
After your child learns a concept through Khan Academy, reinforce it with Infinilearn. The adaptive system will automatically serve problems in the topics they've been studying, mixed in with review of earlier topics. Aim for 15-20 minutes of Infinilearn 3-4 times per week as ongoing practice. The game format means most homeschool students will do this willingly — some will even ask for more time.
Assessment: Khan Academy Mastery + Infinilearn Dashboard
Khan Academy's mastery system serves as your ongoing assessment — topics aren't marked "mastered" until the student demonstrates consistent proficiency. The Infinilearn parent dashboard supplements this by showing which Common Core standards your child is strong in and which need work. Together, these two tools give you a clear picture of where your child stands without you needing to create and grade tests.
Supplementary: CK-12 + GeoGebra
When your child needs a different explanation than Khan's videos provide, use CK-12 as an alternative reference. For geometry and graphing topics, use GeoGebra for interactive exploration. These tools fill gaps — they're not daily resources, but they're valuable when needed.
Common Mistakes Homeschool Parents Make with Math
These are the patterns we see most often when talking to homeschool families. All of them are fixable.
Skipping Topics
It's tempting to skip topics your child finds easy or that you consider unimportant. Don't. Math is cumulative — every topic in the standard sequence serves as a building block for something later. Skipping statistics in 6th grade, for example, means your child won't have the foundation for data analysis in 8th grade. Follow a complete scope and sequence, even if some topics seem less important.
Moving Too Fast
One advantage of homeschool is working at your child's pace. But some parents interpret this as "go as fast as possible." Racing through material without building genuine understanding creates gaps that compound over time. It's better to spend an extra week on fractions until the concept truly clicks than to move on and have your child struggle with every fraction-dependent topic for the next two years.
Not Enough Review
Learning a topic and retaining it are different things. Without regular review, students forget what they learned months ago. This is called the "forgetting curve," and it's the reason spiraling curricula exist. Make sure your child regularly practices earlier topics, not just the current one. Infinilearn handles this naturally through its adaptive system, which mixes review problems with new content.
Relying on a Single Resource
No single tool does everything well. Khan Academy is great for instruction but boring for practice. Infinilearn is great for practice but doesn't teach new concepts. Worksheets are good for assessment but terrible for engagement. The best homeschool math programs combine multiple tools, using each for what it does best.
How to Know If Your Homeschooler Is on Track
One of the biggest anxieties homeschool parents face is "are we doing enough?" Here's how to check.
Grade-Level Benchmarks
By the end of each grade, your child should be comfortable with these core topics:
- End of 6th grade: Fluent with fraction operations, understands ratios and rates, can evaluate and write simple expressions, knows area and volume formulas, can work with integers on a number line.
- End of 7th grade: Solves two-step equations, understands proportional relationships, works with rational numbers (including negatives), can calculate area and circumference of circles, understands probability basics.
- End of 8th grade: Solves linear equations, graphs linear functions, understands the Pythagorean theorem, can describe transformations, understands the concept of a function.
Standardized Testing Options
If you want an objective measure, several standardized tests are available to homeschool families:
- MAP Growth (NWEA): Adaptive, nationally normed, available through some homeschool testing services. Gives a detailed breakdown by math domain.
- Iowa Assessments: Widely used, can be administered by homeschool cooperatives or testing services. Provides grade-level equivalency scores.
- CAT (California Achievement Test): Available online for homeschool families. Less detailed than MAP but easy to administer.
You don't need to test every year, but testing once at the end of each grade level gives you confidence that your curriculum is working. If scores show a gap, you know exactly what to focus on.
The Bottom Line
You don't need to spend hundreds of dollars on a math curriculum. Khan Academy provides the instruction and structure. Infinilearn provides adaptive, engaging practice with a parent dashboard that tracks progress by standard. CK-12 and GeoGebra fill in the gaps. Together, these free tools cover everything a paid curriculum offers — and in some areas, they cover it better.
The key is combining them deliberately: use Khan for instruction, Infinilearn for practice, and the dashboard data from both to guide your child's learning path. Check in with a standardized test annually if you want objective confirmation. And remember that consistency matters more than curriculum — 30 minutes of math 5 days a week with free tools beats an expensive program that sits on the shelf.