How to Turn a Subscription Box into Curriculum

We absolutely LOVE subscription boxes . Many are already created with homeschoolers in mind, but even those that aren’t make exceptional “creative curriculum”.

Recently we were gifted a box from the lovely folks at Tokyo Treat, and as big fans of Japanese food, snacks, tradition and culture- we were super excited!

Now, I could have torn it open like a wolverine and snacked away- which we wanted to do- and still learned A LOT. Each box comes with a booklet that discusses the theme and gives history, mythology, and loads of additional non-snack-related info, but why not turn it into a mini-unit study and spread it out over a week or more of learning fun?

We loved this box- all of the treats were full size, and between me, my partner and 3 kids everyone got to taste everything, which is definitely something we look for in snack/tasting subscription boxes- shareability! It was also a MASSIVE amount of variety- like SO MANY SNACKS. It took us 4 days to taste our way through the treats!!!

In the meantime we built a week-and-a-half long unit study on Tsukimi around the treats- here’s how:

Here’s how I turn a single subscription box into a unit study:

First take a look at the box, the deliverables already provided, any links or extras and then use that as your foundation to build out the study.

Second, do some research and find a video or two, an art project, some music and history- but challenge yourself to make the sources of these additional resources native voices, and from the perspective (in this case Japanese) of the culture being represented.

The theme of our box was Tsukimi, Japan’s mid-Autumn Moon Festival.

We started with a few videos about the history of this festival and how it has changed over the years. We also used the info in the provided booklet.

As we snacked our way through the box we wrote a Haiku about the moon, we made story plates and we learned about the ways people celebrate this event in Japan.

I also want to note- we don’t use a specific geography “curriculum” as part of our homeschool experience- so I always take opportunities like this to weave a geography lesson into the lesson.

A fun PBL (project-based-learning) element for a subscription box like this one could be planning a trip to the destination- if you were going to plan a trip to Japan during the Mid-Autumn fest- what would you do? What would you eat? Where would you go? This can be as simple as a discussion, or as intricate as creating a real budget, finding flights and hotels, and creating an actual itinerary (even google slides of what the trip might be like!)

Subscription boxes are a fun way to learn about different places, cultures, topics and treats! I highly recommend checking out Tokyo Treat for yourself, and hopefully I’ll write another post like this one soon after we take our (someday) trip to Japan to celebrate this awesome festival in person!!