I mentioned earlier this year that I want to write about more of the “everyday” learning that goes on in our family, in addition to sharing posts on the “big stuff” like resource guides and five-day series.

There are so many of these “odds and ends” that they’re easy to miss. For example, today…

• Ashar was reading her box of Sucrets (she’s got a cough and sore throat), and she said, “Mom, what’s  Z-I-N-C spell, and what is that?”) So we talked about it as a metallic element, and about elements in general, and she wondered if we had any books about the periodic table.
• We don’t (currently) – though it’s now made our library list – but we pulled out Ashar’s 2013 World Almanac for Kids and read about the periodic table in general, as well as some specific elements and compounds. 
• As we read that, we learned that sugar and vinegar are made up of the same elements, just arranged differently and in different proportions. So are chalk and granite! Isn’t that awesome?
• Then we somehow flipped to the money portion of the almanac, where we started talking about the unfinished pyramid and the all-seeing eye on the U.S. dollar, which we had just seen in the National Treasure movies!
• Chris and I got into a completely joking argument about the atomic number of beryllium in which we were both absolutely just guessing and acting like we knew what we were talking about. Chris’s guess was, like, 37, and mine was 84. It turns out it’s 4. Parent learning win, or silliness fail? Maybe both.
• Ashar got a HUGE compliment on the Unschool RULES Facebook page from the mom of a fellow  Minecrafter on the unschooling server we’ve joined. She noticed another “Tourist,” or newbie, and, it turns out, helped him out a little bit as he was coming on board. A few people had done the same for her, so it was cool to hear she paid it forward!

Here’s Ashar, Minecraftin’ away!

So what has your family learned today?