I suppose this is post number 1 of our Day in the Life of Unschoolers series! After posting about a few weeks of unschooling (Here, Here and Here), I decided that I’d prefer a shorter, more compacted version, which I also assume you, dear reader, will also prefer 🙂

That said, before I jump into the series, I wanted to quickly identify the goals of these posts, which are:

1. To act as a living journal of the things we do on the daily – some days will be relatively uneventful, and that’s okay. This log will become something I cherish as the kids get older, and that’s what I’m most looking forward to 🙂

2. To fulfill my need for an accountability partner – as long as I feel the pressure to write down something that we’ve done today, then I know I should get at least one tiny thing done (which tends to be enough to get me off the couch and then we end up doing more than just the one thing anyway – hooray!)

3. To help others who are interested in unschooling or eclectic schooling to see what a day in the life looks like for us! Hopefully it isn’t daunting, and really on the whole, we might get 1-2 hours of “school” in, though our school usually looks like discussions, crafts, exploration, video games, board games, etc 🙂 We very rarely do worksheets, fwiw, and that works just fine for us, especially at the stage we’re currently at!

And one last note (which will be present at the beginning of each of these posts!), this post likely has affiliate links, many of which will offer you discounts to our favorite programs, items, subscriptions, resources, etc. These links ultimately help us out by rewarding us with small cut if you click on or purchase the products and at no additional cost to you 🙂 Using our affiliate links is so incredibly helpful! Thank you so much for helping to fund our little school!

A Day of Wholesome Stardew Valley Gameschooling

So without further ado, today was a day filled with one of our absolute *favorite* video games of all time, Stardew Valley and one of our Raddish Kids subscription boxes, which we’re super excited about!

To back up a step, Stardew Valley has taught our kids SO much about time management, telling time, the different seasons, various aspects of gardening (what a hoe is for, what fertilizer is, the definition of harvesting, etc), geology, economics, and so much more. Plus, it’s seriously THE most wholesome, charming, relaxing game ever. Everrrrrr!

A few weeks ago, we started a new farm (as we tend to do every so often) and we’ve been growing it daily since then 🙂 We’ve accumulated a couple sprinklers, ducks, chickens, cows, multiple silos, tons of crops and I think our average bank account is around $100,000 (if only!).

This go around, T has been loving the fishing aspect. There’s a fishing mini game that tests his reflexes and he gets better at it every day 🙂 He’s been flying through the reading, and E has been reading better every day, too! She, just like T, has been given no formal training or teaching, aside from us offering help with spelling and basic phonics along the way as she’s flung herself head first into reading whatever she comes across!

T has also been obsessed with attempting to smelt everything he can, which has led to discussions on what smelting is, what materials can be smelted (iron, copper, gold, etc (metals)) and what can’t be smelted (amethyst, emeralds, diamonds (gems/stones)).

On the Menu: Taste of India thanks to Raddish Kids

After a few hours of Stardew Valley together, it was T’s night to help make dinner, which we chose to be a Taste of India from one of our Raddish Kids subscription boxes (use coupon “h8833v” for $10 or $20 off your subscription!).

It. Was. Amazingggg! The tikka masala, yellow rice biryani and naan bread were all SO fragrant and turned out so much better than I’d expect a kids‘ recipe to be!

T helped by frying the naan bread, washing it with the butter and adding garlic (our own personal touch!) to the bread. He flipped it and plated them. He helped stir the tikka masala, helped Kelly (Dad) with the fractions needed for measuring out the garam masala (a pain to find during quarantine!) and turmeric spices and we continued our routine of hand washing and kitchen safety while cooking.

To go along with our cooking, we asked Alexa for a Bollywood playlist, which the kids loved (E even said she really liked it) and U danced in the kitchen. Basically straight up Indian restaurant at our place with the musical ambiance and incredible smelling spices! The kids all loved the food and we’re talking about venturing into some different Indian recipes to accompany our new favorite dishes 🙂

Another super awesome thing about the Raddish Kids boxes is that they come COMPLETE with a homeschool curriculum (like this one), Spotify playlists (like this one), extra add on recipes (like mango lassi – yummm!) per month, an activity to do (India’s has to do with mandalas 🙂 ), dietary modifications, etc. They’ve seriously planned every tiny detail for you so that you don’t have to worry about it yourself. I’m not a huge subscription box fan, but Raddish Kids is absolutely worth it and a bag of potato chips (and you can save $10-$20 by using our code “h8833v” at checkout (which also benefits us)!

Various side tasks and activities that were done today

E helped herself to some scissors and paper and cut tons of tiny, intricate designs (guess who got to clean up that mess 🙋🏻‍♀️), one of which was a card that said “Love You” to both Kelly and me, as well as heart, ice cream and people confetti.

The kids had milk kefir for breakfast, which they can’t get enough of! We started it with this culture and it’s been so neat to get to know the bacteria babies we’ve been growing along with our water kefir and kombucha!

Last night I started a batch of yogurt that was strained first thing this morning and which we used in our naan bread and tikka masala.

T and E both played outside in the rain 🙂 B watched a lot of Pocoyo on Netflix, U took the longest nap ever!

Homeschooling Checklist:

And for those who are counting, I’d say we worked on:

• geology
• chemistry
• fractions,
• music
• social studies
• reading
• fine motor & large muscle PE

Tomorrow, we’ll hopefully continue our discussion about India by looking it up on Google Earth, looking up what animals are native to India, watching Bollywood videos on YouTube, looking up interesting facts on Google, asking Alexa how to say “hello” and eventually, undoubtedly how to say “poop” and “fart” (the important things), and ultimately falling down the rabbit hole of whatever the kids find interesting 🙂

I hope everyone had as nice a day as we did today!

Kyrsten

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