One of my goals in homeschooling is to not only educate my children in academics but also in Lifeskills.  “Lifeskills for Kids” by Christine M. Field is a great tool to use.  This is a excellent resource for parents that goes over the basic skills of life that we need to know as adults.  I find these kind of books helpful in making me think about the everyday stuff I do that my kids may not know how to do, like balance a checkbook or the process of learning how to do laundry.  Some of the topics that were interesting to me were the chapters on teaching kids about decision making and teaching them about organization of their space.  Its a worth checking out.

Another resource that I think is worthy of checking out is the book called, “What every Child Should know Along the Way” by Gail Martin.  This is another book that teaches about Lifeskills for children.  What I love about this book is the different lists that the author provides of the different life skills that a child should know at each age of their life starting at the age of 2.  This book is written from a biblical perspective, so there are also many references to God’s word and what it says about life skills.  I also enjoyed the helpful and creative ideas on how to train the little ones.

Teaching life skills to kids can be a lot of fun.  For example, I want my kids to know the basics of cooking before they leave our home.  The easiest way for me to do this with five kids is to have a cooking assistant for meal times.  So each week a different child is assigned to help me with meals and I let them learn how to prepare meals with me. Depending on what we are doing, they can learn anything from how to make tuna fish sandwiches to baking bread from scratch.  You can also involve kids in meals by having them plan and shop for a meal and then having them help cook it.  Its fun to see what they come up with.