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Our Unschooling Resources for 2021

Unschooling Resources for 2021

Another fresh new year! We’ve all been really enjoying chatting about a new rhythm and making space in our days for all the things everyone wants to do. We’ve added some new resources we’re really excited to use too, and I thought I’d share them with you!

We’re using a lot of the usual (art supplies, books, nature, etc) but as the older girls grow they are definitely adding in more resources to support their learning in lots of areas. This year we even have a highschool aged child! Wow! I guess that answers the question ‘what will you do when they get to highschool?’ Well, this. The same as usual!

It’s fascinating how they do grow and change and their interests become deeper and more complex. But, it’s also so awesome to see how it’s all still play. There is no ‘work’ and ‘play’. It is all enjoyable when you’re free to passionately pursue your interests in your own way. And isn’t that the goal? Wouldn’t everyone like their work to feel that way? I think so.

Here’s what we’re using to support that wonderful interest led learning this year…

Community

Unschooling Resources for 2021

Topping the list again this year is our community. Our unschooling group is one of our most vital resources. Time with friends every week is a top priority for everyone. They need hours and hours every week for free play with friends. We also do lots of cool stuff with our group such as markets, project fairs, talent shows, book club, discos, camps, etc. An essential part of our week!

Masterpiece Society

Unschooling Resources for 2021 Art Classes

This was on our list last year too and I am definitely including it again. One of the girls main interests is art, so this one has to be near the top of our list. We love Masterpiece Society.

This is the best art program we have found and the kids are not even close to outgrowing it. After more than a year of doing classes, they are nowhere near completing them all, and they never will be. More are added every year and the kids have not lost interest. There is such a variety of classes that you can always find something you want to do, they cover many different mediums and a range of ages. There’s something for all my kids on there. I find it particularly good for the older girls who have had many years of freely exploring art and are now wanting to learn particular techniques. The younger ones really like mixed media lessons.

Unschooling Resources for 2021 Art class

In 2021 Masterpiece Society added lots of new courses including hand lettering (which Miss 11 was particularly excited about), nature journaling, LiterARTure, and drawing animals. In 2021 there are plans for courses on poetry and painting (really looking forward to this one!), abstract art for teens, and a medieval mixed media workshop. We cannot wait! This is staying firmly on my recommendations list, and for good reason. If you’re after more info, you can read more about it here.

Masterpiece Society Studio Membership (what we use) is opening for a limited time from Monday 18th Jan through Friday 22nd 2021. This is the best value option and means you get access to evvverryyyything! That’s ALL the courses on offer (currently $3700 worth!) You can read more or become a member HERE.

Mel Science

Unschooling Resources for 2021 Science

I’ve been eyeing off these chemistry kits for a while and the girls were lucky enough to receive a year subscription for Christmas from their grandparents. We’ve only had one box so far but I am so impressed! A few days before we planned to do the first experiment, I opened the boxes up to prepare myself. I expected that I’d need to read lots of instructions and that a lot of adult involvement was going to be necessary. Wrong! It was so simple.

The kits come with an app so you just set it up on the phone (they even give you a phone stand), the kids click through step by step and can do it all themselves. They literally did a chemistry experiment and I just watched. If you’ve got multiple children and you’ve ever tried to do an experiment with them I’m sure you know exactly how amazing this is. At the end there was even a video explaining exactly what happened in scientific terms!

Everything was included in the box (except a few batteries), and there was literally no prep needed from me. NO PREP! You just follow along with the instructions. That’s all I need to know, I’m sold. There’s even enough materials included to do the experiments more than once so it works well even though there are four kids who want to have a try at things. Definitely excited for all the experimenting we get to do this year!

Brave Writer Arrow Program

Unschooling Resources for 2021 Literacy

Last year we purchased the year-long Arrow program from Brave Writer. This is a mechanics and literature program you can read more about here. Basically, you read a novel every month together, and then the arrow guides you through the essentials in grammar, spelling, and punctuation. It also contains fantastic questions that prompt great discussions about the book, and book club party ideas for the end of the month! We’ve been using them with our unschool group and the kids absolutely love it. Having a party with a theme and celebrating together really brings the book alive!

Unschooling Resources for 2021 Book Club

I first heard about the brave writer products when I read Julie’s book, which I loved. But to be honest, I thought they’d be boring. Understandable. I’d been taught that this stuff was boring at school. But as I thought more I wondered if my biases were limiting an opportunity for my kids here. So I decided to try one and see if the girls liked it (you can buy single issues). We were reading The Girl Who Drank The Moon at the time and I bought the arrow to go along with it. I really expected them to not want to do it but at least I’d feel ok that I’d given them the opportunity.

I was wrong. They were so interested! We had some awesome chats that I wouldn’t have really known how to facilitate otherwise, they even thought talking about grammar and punctuation was interesting. What? And here we are now doing a whole year of them! If you need some help in talking about this stuff with your kids (I do!), Brave writer has pretty much everything you need.

Matharoo

Unschooling Resources for 2021 Math

The girls enjoy math problems and often go through phases of asking me to write out endless sums for them to do. Guys, I’m all out of sums, ha! I can’t think up any more! And as they get older they also want something more complicated. Sometimes I print some out off the internet and one day when I was searching for some I happened to come across Matharoo.

Matharoo uses real-world problems from TV, news, social media, Australian nature, sport and pop culture, and I thought that was so awesome. The way math is often taught makes it seem so irrelevant to everyday life. The word problems I got in school were often pretty pointless and repetitive so I liked how these questions showed how math is used in many ways for real-world situations. Plus they often spark further discussion about current events, etc.

There is no way I could think up questions this interesting, and the older girls were definitely keen for more so we’ll be using the subscription this year. They are emailed out every week so we’ll always have them on offer for whenever they come asking for math problems! I also really like how there is no instruction on how to work things out. They are free to tackle the word problems in whatever way makes sense to them. This is always super interesting to me! Both of them have different ways of looking at things, and that’s just what the world needs.

You can read more about Matharoo and try them here.

Khan Academy

More math! Sometimes they like using the computer for math problems. They go through phases of this. We tried Khan academy for a short time a few years ago, but it didn’t stick. We’re back this year though! The girls have been enjoying Prodigy Math for a while now, but it’s getting a little frustrating for them. At the beginning of each year it seems to reset and they have to do a placement test again, which annoys them. Sometimes they also need some more explanation when new problems are presented, and prodigy doesn’t give much of that. I think they will still use it but I also reminded them about Khan Academy.

The really great thing about Khan Academy is that it’s not just problems, it also teaches you. If you don’t know how to answer a question you can just watch a video and learn it first! Plus, it’s free! Everything is really well laid out and easy to navigate. There’s also way more than just math on there now, but we haven’t ventured into the other subjects. Maybe when they are older.

Activity Books

Unschooling Resources for 2021 Art

The girls love when I set up little activities for them to find. Just art invitations, story writing prompts, puzzles, etc. When we were chatting about the year ahead, they specifically asked if I could do this more often. Thankfully they got a bunch of awesome books for Christmas that are really going to help me out with this. A person only has so many ideas!

Unschooling Resources for 2021

The Art Lab books are really great. Most of them have 52 ideas, so they last a whole year. They are fabulous for art ideas, and we also have the math and animation ones too. There are lots more in the series that I think we’ll be checking out when we’re done with these.

Outschool

We’re still using Outschool this year! It comes and goes, depending on the kids’ interests and what’s on offer for our timezone. Generally, I find there’s a class on most things and it’s a really great resource for times when you want to talk to an expert on a subject!

Art Supplies

Unschooling Resources for 2021 Art

Art supplies are a must. I try to keep them topped up because all the girls do art every day in one way or another.

Our essentials include:
Markers
Graphite pencils
Coloured Pencils
Watercolour pencils
Oil pastels
Soft pastels
Paints (watercolour, acrylic, poster paint, gouache, liquid watercolours)
Paper (normal, patterned, watercolour, card)
Clay
Glue
Glue gun

You can find all our favourites here.

Unschooling Resources for 2021 Books

I also wanted to mention this fabulous book we’re reading this year. It’s an Art History book, but it’s presented in a really interesting way.

“An enthralling journey through the story of world art, from early cave paintings right up to the present day. Discover artists and their art around the world, in 68 exciting and imaginative tales about artists and the way they created their work.”

Unschooling Resources for 2021 Books

Art History can be a bit dull. This book really brings it to life through story, and has us all captivated.

Podcasts

We have not listened to many podcasts before! It’s been something we’ve been meaning to do and the kids added it to the list of things they wanted to fit in this year. We decided on days we’re home, we’ll listen to them over lunch. Here’s what we’re starting with…

Short and Curly

Wow in The World

Smash Boom Best

Letters from Afar

Unschooling Resources for 2021 Geography

I signed up to Letters from Afar at the end of last year and we’ve only just started to look at. Aren’t they beautiful? You receive a letter in the mail each month from a different part of the world. Each letter contains a map, interesting information about the destination, and beautiful images.

I thought this would be a great way to learn about different parts of the world. We haven’t had any major interests in geography yet. They are always curious to learn about other countries when something prompts it though and I felt this was a good way to make sure there was enough of that happening!

Yesteryear Gazette

Unschooling Resources for 2021 History

Another subscription from the same people, this time about history! The kids have also been loving Yesteryear Gazette. And doesn’t everyone love receiving actual mail? Each month they get a newspaper detailing historical happenings from that month! It’s super cool and interesting. We’re learning so much! The stories often prompt further googling and always lots of discussion.

Code Changers

Miss 9 has been interested in coding for a couple of years now and we’ve tried a few different programs. As she’s getting older she’s outgrown them though and is really looking for a bit more. This year she’s trying out Code Changers. She has only just started delving into it but is so far loving it! She showed me a whole page of code she had written recently that looked liked gibberish to me but she was able to explain it all! The website is set out well enough that she is able to navigate everything herself and do the lessons independently. There is so much to learn and it seems just at the right level for her!

When Code Changers saw her loving the lessons they also offered 35% off any of their teachable courses to my readers! You can find the courses here, just use the code SARA.HAPPINESS35OFF!

Mulberry Planner

Unschooling Resources for 2021 Planner

I definitely need to finish off my list with my brilliant planner again. I kept it up ALL YEAR last year. This has never happened before. I was a majorly haphazard record keeper. It is definitely down to finding the right planner for me! Mulberry is just so customisable that you get to make it exactly what you want. And that means it works perfectly for you and you keep using it! Win!

And even better, this year Mulberry designed some bonus pages especially for us! When you get your planner through this link, you also get SIX extra pages exclusive to Happiness is Here readers! Woop! Mulberry have kindly made up the templates for projects and interests, questions, etc, that I use (you can read more about how I use the planner here). PLUS a version of the weekly recording pages that go from Mon-Sun, because unschoolers learn every day, right? AND a little template for chatting with your kids and asking about what they would like to learn and create. I used this page at the beginning of the year to help us work out our rhythm and find out all the things the girls wanted to work on this year. I hope you enjoy the special bonuses from me!

Unschooling Resources for 2021 Planner

And that brings me to the end of my list! It was quite a long one! And there was still more I could have included like nature, gardening, books, a daily rhythm! But I figure you get the point and you’re probably tired of reading. I hope it was helpful to you though!

Do you have any awesome resources to share with me?

Comments

January 19, 2021 at 11:08 am

I love this overview of what you’re using now. I find year to year, we still rely on the same old supplies! I’m curious to see how that changes as they grow, but our art closet – filled with everything paints to duct tape to arrow-crafting materials – is the greatest asset we have.

We have used the dissection kits from Home Science Tools, https://www.homesciencetools.com/, which I highly recommend if your kids lean toward the macabre. 😉 We’ve also done these in groups and that was equally exciting. Anyway, I’m off to check out those chem kits… Thanks!



Ella
January 19, 2021 at 12:56 pm

This is fantastic thank you! What are some of the coding games or resources that you started with before your daughter outgrew them?



Morgan
January 19, 2021 at 2:04 pm

I find these posts really useful – its always fun to see what other homeschoolers are using especially in Australia.

We’re also using the Brave Writer Arrows this year. We’ve paused them at the moment though to re-read the books in Jaclyn Moriarty’s Kingdoms and Empires series starting with ‘The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone’. I’m not sure if you’ve read it but it is hands down my girls absolute favourite series. We’re using the ‘Books are Magic’ guide from Moomookachoo to go with it. It has discussion questions, activities and recipes.

We’ve just started using the art prompts from Bardot Brush for ‘Making Art Everyday’. We made journals and then we’re going to follow the prompts together.

My girls are super into Dinosaurs at the moment so we’re using the Blossom and Root science program for ideas for activities and links to interesting videos and books etc

I’ve just signed up for Mel Science and the Yesteryear Gazette through your links – they look really good. Thanks for the recommendations! 🙂



Yolanda
January 19, 2021 at 4:01 pm

Hi there, I do love these posts. Your Natural Learner has a year of morning invitations which are really awesome. Worth the mention.



Amy
January 20, 2021 at 9:50 pm

I’m wondering what you might recommend for a family traveling full time? The kids spend a fair bit of time on youtube and video games and seem to have very little interest in outschool, khan, prodigy etc. They did both play through teach your monster to read a couple of times but even my oldest doesn’t really read good enough to read a book or anything.
They have workbooks and wont touch them. We have very limited space for arts and crafts goods and when I made space for them we found it really only got pulled out once in about 3 months and we do not have enough space for things we use that little.. My oldest sometimes colors in with textas and my youngest is pretty into clay but mostly it just ends up crumbles in the dirt. I do not merge with a community fast enough to take em to local homeschooling stuff in areas we are passing through so as much as I can see them getting heaps out of all the new places we see and all the cool things we do and there is heaps of learning through conversation (seeing parrot fish chomping away at coral started a massive convo) and such going on when I see something like this I get the ”I’m not doing enough”s reeeeeeeal bad!



Malissa
January 23, 2021 at 2:40 am

Thank you so much for this Post! It is very informative. We also use Masterpiece Society!



Kirsten
January 23, 2021 at 4:33 pm

Thank you as always for sharing your resources! It’s so helpful. Do you have any posts about how the young ones learned to read? I’m approaching that age with my oldest and very curious how it’s going to go down.



Malissa
January 24, 2021 at 3:03 am

Hi Sara,
I have a question for you regarding socialization. My children are not getting enough socialization, in my opinion with children around and the same age. They are also wanting to get into real ‘live’ classes , however are closed here in The Netherlands due to Covid. I am finding it hard.. luckily we have the children in the neighborhood, but it does not seem enough.. It seems amazing that you have your socialization… Here in The Netherlands we are only allowed one visitor per day. Do you have any tips? The one thing I have added since Covid are penpals, we write frequently.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this, if you have a moment.

Regards,
Malissa



Kat
February 16, 2021 at 9:55 pm

Awesome resources, we love letters from afar and just started subscribing to the yesteryear gazette. We also get letter subscriptions from writings from the wild, miss maisy’s tasty travels, heritage adventure letters, heritage letters, post from the past, fairy notes and charm post. lol there’s a lot of letter subscriptions to enjoy



Sarah
February 23, 2021 at 10:07 pm

Thanks so much for sharing your resource list again this year! I love hearing your resource recommendations. We’re now waiting on our first issue of the Yesteryear Gazette and Letters From Afar, and I have MEL Science on my resource wish list. We might check out Mathroo as well, as we just finished the Bedtime Math book and everyone loved it but they were a bit easy for the older kids. We usually do Brave Writer with our homeschool book club and have been missing it this year with restrictions here. At home we all love the Read Aloud Revival Family Book Clubs, both the monthly picture book ones, and quarterly novels. The activities are fun and easy and my older kids have been loving the drawing videos on there as well.



Zoe Raiden
March 10, 2021 at 11:12 pm

Great post! I’m sure you’ll have a great year with the girls! Have fun!



HC
March 8, 2022 at 6:28 pm

Hi Sara. I am currently trying to look for an unschooling group (or to create one if I cannot identify anything) in my community. Can you elaborate more about how to start one and how you run the group to honor the unschooling spirit, please? Thank you!



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