Life Skills
Real skills, taught the way they used to be — outside, with your hands, with notes you keep year after year. Every track has four age tiers and an outdoor observation log that follows your child through the seasons.
Identifying plants, ethical harvest, the rule of thirds, the forager's rules. Wild garlic vs. lily-of-the-valley. Acorn flour from the ground to the pan.
🌱Soil is alive. Build hot compost. The mason-jar texture test. Companion planting. Save your own seed. Build a no-dig bed in 7 days.
☁️Read the clouds. Eight cloud types. Fronts and pressure. Old weather sayings (and why they work). Navigate by Polaris. Predict your own land's weather.
🔥Light a fire with one match. Tie six knots that do everything. Build a debris hut you can sleep in. Friction fire — the 50,000-year-old skill.
Grain to loaf. Banana muffins to wild-yeast sourdough. Real ratios, real science, real recipes.
🫙Freezing, freezer jam, lacto-fermentation, water-bath canning, root cellaring — what to do with the abundance.
🧵Threading a needle, sewing a button, patching a knee, hemming pants, sashiko visible mending.
🕯️Welcoming guests, setting a seasonal table, hosting a meal, writing thank-yous, giving a toast.
💰Coins, budgets, bank accounts, paychecks, taxes, compound interest. Homestead economics.