Teaching Life Skills to Your Kids: What should I teach?

Teaching the top Life Skills to your kids

Handicraft, Charlotte Mason-style, involves teaching life skills to kids. But what skills should you teach? We’ll be looking at these in more detail in the future months, but for now, here are some practical ways to incorporate teaching life skills into your kids’ learning.

Background Handicraft

Charlotte Mason handicraft is typically done in the afternoons during “structured free time” and usually builds skills slowly over time.

Some of the basics, like needlework, gardening, housework, and model-making were revisited over several years. Others, like sloyd, paper modeling, or leather work progressed through a series of models until the child possessed a certain mastery.

In today’s modern Charlotte Mason homeschools, individual topics, like quilling or chair caning, are covered over a semester or year and then revisited if the child forms a relationship with the craft.

All are designed to enhance the habit of careful execution, to build confidence in the learner, and to help the learner develop good character.

Often, during the systematic development of learning the craft, the child would be capable of sharing their skills or gifts with others in a sort of “end of semester” final project. For instance, a sewing final project might be to “Make a garment for the ‘Save the Children Fund'”, according to the PNEU Programmes.

Teaching Life skills

Generic Top Skills

cooking
sewing
tool repair & maintenance
home repair & maintenance
vehicle repair & maintenance
finance
gardening

Now these are all SUPER generic! You could spend a lifetime learning new things in any one of these areas. So I’d rather get very specific with 3 basic things to learn in each of these areas. Except for Finance – truly an essential life skill, but I think you should cover it in math and in everyday life – for example, in my shopping cart inflation mini-lesson.

Here, I’ve gathered 3 very specific skills/tasks to learn in each category of popular hands-on skills listed above which you can teach your children. Each lists a favorite source.

These skills build on each other too, in general. The older the child or the more familiar with the topic, the easier each skill is to master.

Cooking:

For an overview of a semester in which you teach 6 skills to make “from scratch” cooking easier, check out my post on Teaching Cooking Skills to my Kids. Otherwise, here are some other fun ideas to get you going.

Fry an egg in a cast iron pan. | Permies.com forum. They have a challenge where you can earn badge “bits” and frying an egg in cast iron is part of the “Food Prep & Preservation” Badge. Fantastic breakdown of what you need to do with tiny video tidbits demonstrating each part. Note: If you are unfamiliar with forums, don’t go down a rabbit hole. All you need is Step 1 & Step 2 video. If you want to earn badges, you have to get a free account so you can post your results.
Roast a chicken | Downshiftology shows the way I learned it. Simplest ever method. This site has a video also.
- ADVANCED: Spatchcock Roast the Chicken | AlphaMom from her series of recipes “Every Mom should teach her kids”. Spatchcock removes the backbone and butterflies the bird. Not hard, but involves kitchen shears, so I call it advanced. She’s right though – the bird is more evenly cooked every time! No more undercooked legs with dry, overcooked white meat.
Bake a loaf of bread from scratch | Sally’s Baking Addiction
- ADVANCED: Sourdough Bread | Full kid’s lesson at Pantry Mama and if they are really into it: Zero Waste Chef

Hand sewing

Much to my surprise, some people consider sewing, a “lost skill“. Here are some ideas on how to find it.

Sew a button back on (includes threading a needle) | Real Men Style Youtube
Mend a small hole | Bob Vila
Hem pants or skirt | Sew Can She

Tool repair & maintenance

Remove rust, clean & oil a hand tool | Garden Betty This is also a BB on Permies.com
Sharpen a knife | Also a Permies.com BB. They have a video and recommend watching a few if you’ve never
- Montana Knife Company: Step-by-Step instructions includes video
- Outdoor Life: Several methods examined, focusing on outdoor knives
- Master Knife Sharpener shows Epicurious how to sharpen a knife YouTube
Clean the inside of a dishwasher | Clean Mama

Home repair & maintenance

Hang a picture | Easy DIY Hacks for Beginners YouTube
Unclog a drain or toilet
- Sink Drain | Bob Vila
- Drain Unclog without Chemicals | Family Handyman
- 5 ways to unclog a toilet | Toiletseats.com
- How to Plunge a Toilet | Family Handyman
Paint a room properly
- How to Paint a Room Top to Bottom | At Home with the Barkers (though she disregards the normal “pro” order of Ceilings, trim, then walls (which uses painter’s tape typically). But it works.
- Painting a room for Beginners—Guide for a Pro Finish | Postcards From the Edge

Vehicle repair & maintenance

Inflate tires to the right pressure.
- Cars | Firestone
- Bikes | Schwinn
Refill car fluids | Maui Oil
- You may need to google your make of car or the specific fluid.
Oiling your bike chain | REI

Gardening

For more on gardening as handicraft , check out my post on How to Train a Future Gardener. Otherwise, here are some other fun ideas to get you going.

Grow something you eat
- Square Foot Gardening with Kids
- Square Foot Gardening for Kids | Get the Kids Outside
- Growing Plants 101 | Gardeners Path
Start some plants from seed
- Microgardener has a number of guides
  - Growing your own food from seed
  - Starting from seed
Build or bury a compost heap
- Make a Compost heap | Eden Project
- Ruth Stout Composting | Permies.com