What is Life Skills 101 & Why am I Writing This?

To answer these questions, I should probably first tell you how this came into being & then that will help you to know what I am talking about when I say Life Skills.

I am a Homeschool Mom. My children have been to good public schools but at this time in their lives, we felt that God wanted us to Homeschool them. Part of the reason why was because there are a variety of skills that schools do not teach that kids need to become functioning, contributing adults in society.
You do not have to be a Homeschool parent to get some good ideas out of this. You can use these ideas after school or over the weekend if your kids attend school. You can even use these ideas if you are an adult. I am constantly reading new books that teach me new ways to look at life & anyone can do that whenever they see things presented to them in new ways.
Some of the skills that I think are important to learn are big things: learning to balance a checkbook, knowing how to live on a budget, cook & clean up your living space & go shopping. So I set out to make a list of these big ideas that I felt my kids needed to know. However, along the way I realized that there are a myriad of little skills that as adults we rarely think about but that it would be nice if someone had taught to us instead of us having to learn them on our own.
For example, ATM safety & etiquette. Don't you wish the guy behind you at the ATM had learned not to crowd you & make you nervous as you get your money? How about family traditions, what yours are & why they are important?
Lots of things kept coming up & I decided to make a curriculum for my kids to learn the stuff with. We also decided to come up with a list for Healthy Living which is not just eating right, not smoking & exercising but also anger management, stress relief & friendship skills to name a few.
When I shared this idea with the other Moms at our Homeschool group, they loved it! They all agreed that there are lots of things out there that we feel are important for our kids to learn & they asked me to share my ideas with them as they added to my thoughts their own ideas.
Thus was born this blog. I felt God wanted me not only to share my lists but also to share with you how I am teaching my kids these important ideas. So here you go: hopefully SOON I will post my two lists for you to see as well as share with you some ideas for the week.


This is how I work it at my house: every week I pick one idea from the Life Skills list & one from the Healthy Living list. Then I talk with my kids about each topic. We brainstorm together, make notes & I point out what I feel is important for them to know. Sometimes they will research the topic further. Maybe we will do specific activities for that topic. Then during the week they have to write or type me up a small paper of the topic & what we have learned. (Little kids can draw picture.) The finished project then goes into a notebook that becomes a reference book for future use as well.
THE BEAUTY OF THIS is that I do not have a set agenda to study the topics. You could if you wanted to be more organized about it however in my household, I have found that it works better for us to pick topics that correspond with what is happening in our lives at the time.
For example, Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to foster an attitude of thankfulness. Christmas is a great time to concentrate on family traditions, caring for others in charitable ways & studying the Bible.
SECOND, these lists are made for anyone: kids from a very small age can participate in these ideas & learn from them if you gear the ideas for their age, adults can garner ideas that they may not have thought about before & all ages in between can work with these ideas.

So here are my goals for this blog: in the next day or so, I hope to post both lists for you all to see. The topics are in no particular order. The first ones listed are not what I consider to be most important; they are just listed in the order that I thought of them. It is also an ongoing list that I may add to whenever I, or someone else, comes up with more ideas.
Feel free to print out the lists, add your own ideas & do what you want with them for yourselves & your families.
Then hopefully before the end of the week, I will list 1-2 ideas from each list & what specifically we have done to study those topics this week. That way you can see how I teach the ideas & maybe get some ideas that you can use.
Finally, I hope once a week (maybe on Sunday nights) to post new topics for the following week so that if you are trying out these ideas, you will get some new ideas as we go along.

Okay, so that's what Life Skills 101 is & why I am here. I'm really excited about this. I love doing this project with my kids because I know that they are learning some valuable things that they won't learn any where else. Plus, I am happy to share these ideas with you. My prayer is that God will show you what you need & that you will be helped when you need it by my words & the ideas you come up with.
Be patient....soon! Bj