Life skills club

[emily]

Lots of great ideas here! Don’t forget "how to use a landline phone" (which might have to start with "how to RECOGNIZE a landline phone" depending on your audience...).


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Funny story overheard while waiting to pick up my 8 year old at the school office. A child was not feeling well and was in the office to call his mom. Walked over to the landline hanging on the wall, stood in front of it and shouted “call mom!” Lol.


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[Kestrel]

Memorizing phone numbers and addresses! So many tweens/teens draw a complete blank when asked what their own family's phone numbers/addresses are. If there's an emergency, they need to _know_ the info, not just have it in the phone where it could get lost/stolen/out of power.

Those on long-term medicine also need to know the name and dosage of it.

Change a car tire. Check the oil in a car. Check tire pressure and how to fill.

Cutting grass and cleaning gutters.

Clean the "pea" trap in a sink.

Clean the coils on the fridge, and evaporation trap.

[hellokitty]

Reach out to your local land grant university extension office. Their FCS (family consumer science) educator should have plenty of ideas, resources and may even be willing to help teach certain topics.

[hbridge]

There are lists out there. My child's school sent one out a few years ago as to what skills should be mastered by "roughly" what grade.

The one that we should all know is how to use a fire extinguisher...

[NCGrandma]

Reach out to your local land grant university extension office. Their FCS (family consumer science) educator should have plenty of ideas, resources and may even be willing to help teach certain topics.

Reminds me of 4H — at least in some places, 4-H has some sort of connection to the extension office. DGD1 has done some of the suggested activities through 4-H. I particularly remember when they made some kind of simple recipe and then needed to make a presentation (complete with step by step poster) about how to make it. (She won some kind of state award for hers, despite being very nervous beforehand. )

So 4-H might have some good resources too.


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[TwinFoxes]

.

Change a car tire. Check the oil in a car. Check tire pressure and how to fill.

Cutting grass and cleaning gutters.

Clean the "pea" trap in a sink.

Clean the coils on the fridge, and evaporation trap.

I feel like car things are for older teens. I didn’t know how to change a tire in elementary/middle school.

[gatorsmom]

How to ride a city bus, how and why to balance a check book, how to plunge a toilet, how to ask a girl (or guy) on a date, what to expect (and what NOT to expect) on a date, how to read a paper map (not just gps on their smart phone) budgeting, paying taxes, paying bills, managing a credit card, how to ask for help, who to ask for help, etc.

sorry, most of my answer is due high schoolers. But they can take baby steps toward these subjects. Many of these things I’ve already talked to my 12 year old about. They just aren’t old enough to try these themselves.

[jenstring95]

Lots of great ideas here! Don’t forget "how to use a landline phone" (which might have to start with "how to RECOGNIZE a landline phone" depending on your audience...).


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And phone etiquette!

[Liziz]

These are some really good skills! And I love the idea for the club.

~Public transportation!!!! I know not everywhere has great options for practice, but that makes it all the more important, because at some point life will take you to a big city and you'll be so much more mobile (for such a lower cost) if you're willing to figure it out.
~wherever possible I'd work in growth mindset/grit/resiliency. It will help them immeasurably in so many situations.
~Financial anything and everything - yes, the very basics like balancing a checkbook, and budgeting, but also things like interest (both in situations like how it can ruin you with a credit card and also how it can benefit you in a 401k/IRA situation) and basic financial words and how they're used.
~Basic cooking skills - with a thought towards someone being able to confidently and safely follow basic recipe directions/directions on the back of a box (so being familiar with the words they'd see in those situations)
~Laundry basics
~How to clean a bathroom
~Lawn mower/yard work basics
~Basic tool understanding - what simple hand tools are and how they're used (screwdrivers, wrenches, pliers, etc.) and how to use a power drill/screwdriver.
~Basic customer service skills (sooooo many jobs will require this at some point!)/basic manners

[hellokitty]

Yup, 4h is part of Extension they typically share the same building. Family consumer sciences is part of it too, but depending on your county's funding of those kinds of programs they may or may not offer it. For example, they stripped our extension services in my county to only 4H and nothing else, they laid off 10 people down to one. The family consumer sciences educator taught nutrition, budgeting, parenting, cooking, etc.. basically life skills type of stuff. There were also people who were agriculture experts, when I worked at Extension (in a federally funded position), people used to show up with snakes and other critters, wanting them to be identified. Well, we didn't have those services, I would send them to the next county over.