Purchasing

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Lesson Planning

TODO: put in some info about the NEW experience.

Topic Overview (15 to 20 minutes)

Our program is designed to be paired your own life skills knowledge as a parent. In our home, we discuss the topic around the kitchen table before watching the video. We find out how much the kids already know and (importantly) guage their initial level of interest.

During this first discussion, we don't provide step-by-step "how to" instruction. Instead, we focus on the big picture. We describe examples of the skill, potential safety concerns and the inherent challenges. This helps set expectations about the level of effort required to learn the skill. Our initial conversation tries to spark sincere enthusiasm among all of our kids, and this starts with sincere enthusiasm from the parent.

Some topics aren't going to be immediately appealing to our kids. For example, they may not be excited to practice cleaning the toilet. So right upfront we talk about the "why". Many skills can show love and kindness to others. In other words, we try to weave the motivation for the skill throughout our conversation.

Watch Videos (10 to 15 minutes)

We start by watching the SkillTrek video. The kids will naturally chime in with comments and questions.

Sometimes you'll have great answers. Sometimes you won't, but most answers are pretty easy to find since we're right there at the computer (or phone) watching the SkillTrek video.

Practice Sessions (time varies)

The skills in our program our so diverse, but we want our students to do more than just talk about skills. We want them to have have some hands-on practice. The time, resources, supervision and opportunity for each skill varies quite a bit. But in order for your kids to become proficient in these skills, they're going to need your help and support.

Honestly, this is probably the most difficult part for many families. The way that we make this work is a baseline understanding that I as the parent will fully support my children's practice of these skills. This doesn't mean that I can ignore the very real constraints of time, energy, money, tools and materials. It simply means that I'm willing to wisely contribute as much of those resources as I can in order for my children to develop skills. Often I find that we can both learn a lot (and have fun) by working 1:1 with the child on the skill.

Cadence

In our home we generally aim for a new skill topic each week. With a wide variety of ages, this works pretty well. We try to toggle between topics for the younger and older age ranges. With the more advanced skills, the young kids usually find a way to help out. When we are on the simpler skills, it's usually the older kids who teach the young ones. (As a bonus, the older kids are learning how to teach!)Some naturally extend to multiple weeks either on account of opportunity (think mowing the lawn) or increased interest. In order to keep the pace moving, we try not to linger on one particular skill for too long. We just try to use that skill as a part of normal everyday life.

Oops! Dealing with Failure & Mistakes

We're not always correct in gauging readiness for a particular skill. We also encounter situations where we don't have the materials, tools or budget needed to really learn the skill. It's not a huge deal. Although the nature of life skills is cummulative in some respect, it's not as if failure to bake a perfect loaf of bread from scratch ought to keep you from lots of other cooking and baking.

Just as we want to influence how our kids think about success, we also want to influence how they think about failure. The way you react to setbacks, mistakes and disappointments is a very strong predictor of how your children will react to such situations for the rest of their life.

Got Questions?

Reach out to me directly at dave@skill-trek.com if I can help you brainstorm how to incorporate life skills instruction into your family routine.