As part of your homeschool curriculum, are you doing life skills training? If so, are you using a specific curriculum or just teaching basics? I am thinking I need to actively teach this as part of our regular homeschooling, but would love feedback from others who might already be doing this…
We do not have a curriculum. I just teach my kids the things I’m doing. My daughter cooks with me almost daily, but we have once a week that we make whatever she wants and she has to read the recipe and do all the measuring and mixing. When my oldest went off to college I was not worried about him taking care of himself because we worked on life skills daily. He can cook his own meals, do his own laundry, find where he needs to go by following maps. (of course, now there’s GPS), change his oil and his tire. I still teach them how to read maps because GPS is not always accurate. We have a garden and can vegetables every year. (the boys have never gotten into that) My daughter takes a sewing class once a week. And my husband has taught all the kids how to change the oil and a tire on your car. We will be continuing this with my daughter as she gets older. I don’t want to teach my daughter just how to cook and clean and my sons all about cars! I want ALL of my kids to be well rounded and be able to do things for themselves. That being said, I think life skills is probably THE most important thing you can teach your kids!
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I think, because my daughter has some learning challenges (and who knows if she will ever be able to live on her own?), I feel like I need to have a checklist of what I should do. You’d think it would be easier than that, but even things that you assume kids will understand (like how to answer a phone or mail a letter), she may not really understand. Thus, I need a checklist or a curriculum to make sure these very basic things aren’t missed. We are still working on making a bed correctly. Maybe I’m just too OCD about it, or worrying ahead of time…
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I haven’t used it myself, because my kids are still fairly young, but I have seen a life skills course by CLE. (Christian Light Education.) It is a two part course. I think it covers quite a broad range of skills. (Also, I think I have seen similar types of courses in my Christian Book catalog.) I hope this helps some! Here is the link:
https://www.clp.org/store/by_grade/16
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I used this course for myself to see what it is all about, so far so good. It’s interesting if nothing else but I haven’t gone through all the books yet. Perfect for a teen.
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We use the Montessori Practical Life lessons. They include the care of the person, care of the environment (set a table, folding clothes, food preparation, sewing, sweeping, etc.), and social development. The scope and sequence is made for 3-6 years old kids, I don’t know how old is your child, but many of the activities can be done with older kids if have not been practiced previously. There’s a lot of information and free albums (teacher manuals) on the internet.
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I don’t think you’re being OCD – just proactive! Great question!
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Kathy - thanks for asking this. I’m in same situation. Although my boys like to help. A list of life skills to teach and at what age would be helpful.
We have used Keepers of Faith with our son and daughter. It covers everything! From the ABC’s to canning vegetables to woodworking and sewing on a button. It even has croquet and decoupage. We don’t always do everything in the book. It is designed to go from approximately 7 to 17.
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@KathiJohnson I task analysis chores for my 20 yr old ASD/traumatic brain injury son. Example, if I say go clean your room, he freezes and has NO idea what to do. If I give him a list of 1- make bed, 2-put clothes away, 3- throw away thrash, etc…he still doesn’t know what to do. So, I had to task analysis each step when I initally worked with him. Example: make bed, 1- put pillows at top of bed, 2- remove top blankets, 3- pull sheets up tight…that puts those tasks more concrete for him:) when i first starting teaching him life skills, I had to figure out realistically what skills I thought would be beneficial to him. I wanted him to be able to make a simple breakfast and lunch (no stove), to navigate a store to find some basic groceries and buy them, to make a phone call and ask a question, to be able to self groom and know when to shower/brush teeth/change clothes…etc…my son will never live alone, so your priorities will be different for your daughter. Also, perhaps the most important, I strive to help him understand idioms/mocking, to know what to do in situation where he may be bullied, to build his self esteem, and to love who he is:)
Sorry @KathiJohnson, forgot to mention that I use backward chaining a lot to teach him the steps needed to accomplish chores or life skills:)
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@luvmyboys we do that too. Start with finished bed. Then back step to each part of it. Lots of repetition here!!!
May I ask what backward chaining is? Sorry I have never heard of it before and was curious.
@kendalh the best way to explain it is that chaining is teaching steps of a skill in a specific order. Backward chaining is doing it in reverse order. For some kids, it is easier to see the finished example before starting the new skill.
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Thank you KathiJohnson for explaining it and sharing that. My DS has some learning challenges as well and I had never heard of this. I think it would be very helpful with DS not so overwhelming learning a new skill. I am excited to try it.
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I found that learning life skills as school work was not working well for us. The school work schedule all of a sudden became huge, and a burden. What was supposed to be fun and fulfilling became the opposite. So, I simply remembered that life skills are just that: Skills we learn while we live our lives. Some life skills we may learn as the need arises, while many others we may not ever need to use. Which is why I have been using Keepers of the Faith. It helps us to not forget to learn new skills, but I don’t schedule ourselves like I do for school work when working these in. It’s a special treat to work on these for us, so we try to get our chores and school work done, and remembering that there is this reward once or twice, sometimes more, per week. I also try to incoporate these life skills lessons into our weekends.
Trying to make it a part of our actual lives, like the skill of canning, baking, raising animals, etc, may actually help us do these without any planning!
I am adding this because I just read one of your responses. I think that KOF would work really well as a checklist. That is basically what the book is. It goes over many different skills, and some you may need to look up elsewhere, but most have explanations on how or what to do. Have you looked at their samples? I think you can on their website.
I think for any special ed kid you are going to have to come up with a specialized list that is going to be more basic than any curriculum of “life skills” for a child who will be expected to live on their own.
Also, the ages that are appropriate to learn the skills will depend on the strengths and weaknesses of your child.
I would put things like “change oil in a car” and “tie your own tie” for my boys, but these would not be a priority for a kid who will not live on their own.
I think as you are coming up with your own list you may need to make some categories and plug in what is appropriate.
Ex:
Personal Care: brush teeth, brush hair, know when and where to get hair trimmed, tie shoes, put dirty clothes in the hamper, wear only clean clothes from the drawer, mend or dispose of clothes that are damaged, shower quickly, trim finger and toenails.
What is on each list will change as your child learns and grows. But a list of the most basic skills a person needs to operate in the world would become unwieldy quickly. Part of being a parent, is doing your best to teach many of these things as they become an issue.
I feel any list would give a false sense of security. Since I take in foster kids, I just do my best to pay attention and address issues as they come up. I have dealt with everything from: little girls wiping properly (front to back), teaching toothbrushing all the way to more school subjects.
Since you already know many of the techniques for teaching a challenged child, I know you will be great, and many homeschoolers joke about kids being able to do algebra, but not being able to tie their shoes.
If you prefer an “actual curriculum” to work from that is NOT faith based try attainment company.com
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