Getting started with learning tasks

A chore is something that needs to get done — the bins, the dishes, the bathroom. A learning task is something a kid is trying to get better at. The approval and point system is the same. What's different is that a learning task can include a subject, a goal, an estimated time, and a short proof checklist — things that help everyone know what "done" actually means when the work is practice rather than a product.

Learning tasks also open the door to resources: links to a relevant video, a practice guide, or a piece of sheet music, sourced based on what your family has allowed and what the child's profile says they're working on.

Neither kind is better. They just describe different things. A lot of households run happily with no learning tasks at all, and others find them useful for structured skill-building alongside the regular house work.

Learning profiles live in Settings → Learning. There's one for the family — covering values, allowed resource types, and any blocked domains or topics — and one per child, covering their interests, current skill levels, preferred formats, and any constraints.

You don't need to fill any of this in to create a learning task manually. But if your kid wants to use Spark to coach a proposal, the profile is what Spark reads. The more specific the profile, the less generic the suggestions.

A minimal child profile — two or three interests, a rough level for each, and one or two constraints — is enough to get real value from Spark. You don't need an essay.

If you're assigning: create a new task and set the kind to Learning. You'll see fields for subject, goal, level, estimated time, and a proof checklist. Fill in what's useful. A proof checklist isn't required, but "record a short video" or "show me before bed" helps a lot when the work is practice-based.

If your kid is proposing: they go to the proposal page, describe what they want to learn, and can use Spark to shape it into a real proposal. Spark fills in the structured fields, searches for relevant resources, and returns a draft the kid can accept, adjust, or ignore. Either way, it goes through the same parent-approval queue as any chore.

There's no right way to do this. Some families have kids propose learning tasks as a way to negotiate for things they want to spend time on. Others use them as parent-assigned structure for skills they're working on together. Both work.

When a learning task comes in for review, you'll see the subject, goal, time estimate, and any proof checklist items the kid checked off. The review question is the same as any chore: did it happen?

If resources were linked to the task, you'll see them in the task detail. Whether kids can see those resources is controlled separately — you can set them to parent-visible only until you've had a look.

Approve, send back, or decline. Same buttons, same history. Learning tasks show up in the task record alongside chores so the activity is all in one place.