Practical Life Skills

I have included practical life skills activities in our daily schedule for several reasons.

First, I think it is very important for kids to learn these skills early. If they are familiarized with these activities at a young age and taught to safely perform these tasks it can only benefit them throughout life.

Another reason is the fact that sometime throughout the day these things all have to done and it seemed a better course of action to involve the kids instead of trying to do them on my own while constantly stopping to referee arguments. How much better to use the time I would normally spend settling arguments to teach useful skills instead. This way we are working together on constructive activities and enjoying spending time together.

I'm going to take a closer look at some of the activities we will be doing for Practical Life Skills.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos by Carlos Porto

Cooking - One of the basic skills that everyone needs is knowing how to safely prepare food for themselves and others. So each morning we will take some time and have fun preparing some of the food we will be eating that day. This work gives us the oppurtunity to discuss cleanliness,food preparation methods, kitchen safety, measurements,  food groups and nutrition, where our food comes from, and lots of other fun topics.

Kitchen Clean Up - After breakfast is eaten and food is prepared comes the task of cleaning up our workspace. It is important to grasp the importance of cleaning up and keeping our space nice.

Other Cleaning - Along with kitchen clean up we will be learning about other cleaning as well. The two rooms we will normally work on are the living room and playroom. In these rooms we will do things like dust, wash windows, vacuum and general straightening up. This will help to foster a sense of pride and ownership in our surroundings.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos by Suat Eman

Laundry - Quite honestly, I hesitated to include this here but the fact is this is something that I really need to get done regularly and it is something that kids enjoy helping with. Mainly they will be helping with folding and putting away laundry. And there are a number of things we can be learning while we are doing this. The importance of caring for our clothes will be discussed, as well as things like colors, counting (how many towels have we folded?), and other things.

I'm looking forward to a year of learning together.