Are you looking for ideas for life skills to teach this summer? If so, you’re in the right place! I’ve put together 10 life skills that are perfect for you to teach throughout this summer. These skills to work on require no prior prep for you and you don’t even need to purchase anything! They’re all things that you can do around your home or even out and about in the community.
1. Basic Hygiene
If you have your children home with you more through the summer, this is the perfect time to work on basic hygiene skills. These can be things as simple was washing our hands.. brushing our teeth.. washing our faces. Having the extra time each day without trying to rush through a morning routine to get out the door is perfect for perfecting skills this life.
2. Identify and Name Basic Shapes and Colors
Another great life skill to work on through the summer because you can use things around you every single day – and not even just at home!
“How many red cars can you see in that parking lot?”
“Can you see the green apples?”
“What shape is that door?”
“What shape is that pizza?”
3. Number Recognition and Counting
Again, another great skill to work on without having to do a bunch of prep or buying anything… Although stores are the perfect place for working on this!
“Pick up 4 apples”
“We need 6 carrots”
“How many rolls of toilet roll are in that packet?”
“What number aisle is this?”
4. Safety Skills
It can be really hard to work on basic safety skills with our children. A lot of schools, and I include myself in this, find it really important to work on safety skills and so we do try to include it in our lessons as much as possible. This can be things like;
- Identifying hot items and how to avoid or handle safely.
- Crossing the street safely.
- Stranger identification.
- Safe people identification.
5. Social Skills
Another skill that a lot of us educators do really try to work on with students throughout the year.. And will be a great one for you to continue to work on throughout the summer. Simple things like just playing games together, sharing, taking it in turns. All of these skills can be really difficult for our children to understand but practice helps so much!
6. Identifying Animals and Plants
This one is fun to go out on walks for and see what animals and plants you can find. Google is great for this too and see if you can identify what the plants are by Googling them out and about on your phone as you come across them or take photos of them to research later. A great way to expand learning and to keep children focused on something too!
7. Cooking Skills
I’ve always been a huge advocate for working on cooking and basic food skills with students. Summer is great for continuing this, especially if you are at home with your children more. Starting small like how to make toast, how to make a sandwich, how to make cereal.. And then move on to things that require more steps and following recipes. Get your child(ren) involved and ask them what they’d like to make. Research the recipe together, go shopping together.. All of these things can really have a huge benefit on your child’s learning.
8. Identifying and Sorting Objects
Have your child sort different types of objects – things like toys, kitchen utensils, clothing.. Anything that you already have in your home! Super quick and easy to set up. Plus it will help your child start to be able to identify and sort objects into different categories which you can then use to progress to helping you clean and organize around the house too.
9. Basic Literacy Skills
Any activity that can help your child work on being able to recognize letters and sound out simple words is going to be great to use. Things like hiding magnetic letters in a small swimming pool and have them fish them out. Or print out flashcards.. Or purchase some, you can usually get them fairly cheap in most discount stores.
10. Identify and Express Emotions
Emotions can be really hard and overwhelming for our children. So why not spend some time this summer helping your child work on not only understanding their emotions, but identifying them in others too. And compare the healthy and unhealthy way or expressing those emotions. Role play sessions always go down really well. I also love to go on a trip to the library to hunt out some books and while we’re reading, I’ll just do a quick “How do you think she feels?” “How do you think the rabbit feels?” etc.
I also like to make a game when we’re walking on the street and ask..
“How do you think this man feels here?”
Or
“How do you think that lady feels there?”
Or
“How do you think that baby is feeling?”
Some children do really enjoy this game and it gets them focusing in on how to look for different clues for how someone is feeling.
What life skills are you working on this summer? You may like this free life skills bingo homework to use with your children.. Or if you’re a teacher, you can send it home for students to use throughout the summer too!
Nikki
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