Life skills are an important area of learning for kids. This set of skills guides children in knowing the difference between right and wrong and effectively allows them to get by in life. Follow along as we delve into 15 lively life skills activities for young learners!
1. Bake A Sweet Treat To Enjoy
Bake something sweet such as a cupcake and practice following the recipe and being guided by its instructions. Baking requires students to pay attention to detail, work methodically and employ lots of patience in waiting for their baked goodies.
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2. Learn Emergency Numbers
Knowing the emergency numbers ensures that your child is equipped with the knowledge of who to contact in differing emergencies. Be sure to teach learners the correct telephone numbers based on their geographical location.
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3. Set The Table For Dinner
Sitting at a table for dinner helps encourage open communication and kids will generally feel a sense of pride and accomplishment if their family sits at a self-set dining table.
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4. Use Common Tools
This is a wonderful activity for budding builders! Introduce your kids to tools in a safe environment- ensuring that you highlight the importance of safe usage thereof.
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5. Learn To Garden
Garden is a great life skill to nurture from a young age. Gardening allows learners to become more responsible in caring for their plants. Gardening also exposes learners to a better understanding of the natural world and all of its elements.
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6. Learn About Kitchen Safety
Kitchen safety should be practiced at all times- especially in the presence of minors. Learning about how to best work in a safe manner within the kitchen allows students to avoid causing any hazards or being subject to the consequences thereof. Don’t forget to teach basic kitchen skills during mealtime preparation and ask children if they’d like to help!
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7. Teach Kids to Sew A Button
Basic sewing skills and the attention to detail that is required whilst engaged in tasks, help learners develop fine motor skills and self-control as well as focus and patience.
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8. Count Money And Make Change
Counting money and learning how to give correct amounts of change, is a skill that everyone should be equipped with. Make it fun with cool coin recognition games, linked below!
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9. Personal Hygiene Activity Sheet
Personal hygiene ensures that adults feel confident and clean every single day. This life skill is important to introduce children to from a young age as it helps combat the spread of germs and illness in a social setting.
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10. Learn Grocery Shopping Skills
Grocery shopping helps improve planning and budgeting abilities. Remember to keep the shopping trip fun by possibly making up word games as you weave your trolley in and out of the various aisles. Grocery shopping skills are also closely related to money skills and the two could even be linked together during an excursion.
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11. Tie Your Shoes
Tying shoelaces is no easy feat, but this easy lace-it-up book will help your kiddies reach success in no time! Fine motor skills are developed during this exercise as not only hand-eye coordination is employed, but so too is finger isolation and coordination. Tying your shoes further introduces learners to the concept of tension and helps to build hand strength.
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12. Help With Cleaning
Cleaning the house or classroom helps reinforce the idea that humans need to look after their belongings by keeping them clean and managing them well. When you ask a child to help you clean, giving clear guidance on what you’d like their help with, you are fostering independent responsibility and self-satisfaction upon completion of the task.
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13. Make an Hourglass
Teach the importance of time management with the help of this fun creation! This life skill helps learners better manage their time in relation to a task or longer schedule in later life.
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14. Matching Laundry Activity
The washing of clothes has come a long way in its modernization of the task and is one of the basic skills a child should learn. Children learn how to use a washing machine and care for their clothing. Make hanging up the clothes a fun task as you turn it into a matching activity!
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15. Learn To Swim
Being able to swim ensures that a child will not drown and is therefore considered a life-saving skill. Learning to swim provides kids with so many later opportunities for fun, such as water-based sports and competitions.
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The skills developed with the help of the above activities help young learners live healthy and happy lives and should therefore be regarded as an integral part of any young learners’ home or school-based learning journey.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do life skills activities help my child achieve?
Functional life skills activities are carried out in a relatively natural manner whilst children are engaged in everyday tasks. Life skills help prepare children to navigate various tasks they will encounter at different stages of life and allow them to lead healthy and happy lives.
At what age should I teach life skills to my child?
Learning life skills is a life-long process, but many concepts can be introduced during the completion of everyday household or classroom activities. Start introducing kids to new areas of learning from a young age to ensure that they will have acquired the necessary skills to successfully cope.
What 10 life skills should my child know before turning 10?
Children should learn how to: prepare a simple meal for themselves, assist with laundry, search the internet in a safe manner, plants seeds and cultivate garden life, navigate around their neighborhood and know emergency numbers as well as tell the time, assist with cleaning and laundry, and learn to swim. These are basic survival skills and help children engage in a wealth of activities.
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