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One of the things that works for me about homeschooling is being able to teach life skills right during our school day!
Although we are not working on this as much as I would like, I know that as the children get older, we will increase the life skills that we work on.
Although I greatly appreciate all the hard work that my Mom did for us as we grew up, before I got married (at age 19), I had never done laundry or made a meal (other than macaroni and cheese, probably).
However, with such busy schedules (for traditional schoolers), it can be difficult to find time to really teach life skills, in between a full day at school, soccer practice, homework, time for dinner, and a tiny bit of family time.
Just last week, we talked for a while (after reading a book about food) about place settings, and where different utensils go. We also were able to take time a couple of weeks ago to make banana bread to share with family and friends.
Having the opportunity to work on life skills works for me! I would love to hear (no matter what your child’s schooling situation is) — what life skills do you think are especially important for your kids to learn? If you’re working on this, what types of things have you been doing at home to teach these essential skills?
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Angie can usually be found writing at Many Little Blessings, where she talks about the ups and downs of daily life, including family, faith, and household management
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
We homeschool too…some of the life skills I think that are important are: meal planning/grocery shopping/cooking/serving/cleaning up, laundry – washing/ironing, BASIC sewing (ie. a button, a hem by hand, no sewing machine). Housecleaning. Handling money (saving/investing/wise spending). Hospitality – making a home inviting to guests (cleaning, preparing, serving, making food/table look attractive).
Those are a few off the top of my head that I can think of…the kids practice it by watching and helping me with the above things.
i think that just the daily care of the house is very important. i didn’t have to do a lot of that stuff growing up either and i am not very good at it now (but i’m trying!).
so my almost-3-yo is already learning how to sort laundry, put away kitchen utensils and anything else i can think of. she likes to sweep and to help cook. we’ll continue on that way and her responsibilities will grow as she does.
Came over from WFMW…when I was growing up, my mom let me be entirely responsible for dinner one day a week. I had to plan the menu, buy the food, follow a recipe, and learn how to time everything so it was finished at the same time. The timing was the hardest part, and it’s a wonder we didn’t starve some nights!
This is one of the many reason that we are homeschooling! I have three daughters and want very much to actually prepare them to not just be wives, but to be good and Godly wives! I don’t feel like I would have time to do that if I sent them to school for 8 hours a day!
My daughters are 5, 4, and 2. The older two have been doing laundry with me for awhile now. They each have two days a week that they are my “special helpers” and get to help prepare all the meals and do dishes with me. They also do chores and help me with vacuuming, sweeping (they love to get the pile swept up with the dustbuster!), and dusting. It is amazing what they can do at such a young age.
Also, we are incorporating a manners lesson into our homeschooling to help teach the things that even I didn’t learn! I’m learning those with them!
I’m praying they will be very prepared when the time comes, because I definitely wasn’t and it would have helped so much! :)
I have 3 boys. We feel they needed to learn how to do the inside & outside the house work. Inside was cooking, cleaning, laundry etc. Outside was lawn, car, home maintenance etc. They will all make great husbands some day!