Teaching Life Skills; Sewing, Cooking, and Painting

It's important to me that my kids learn life skills as well as traditional schoolwork in our homeschool.  Often our days are a good mix of both.

Today was a great example of that:

Ian was up first and he couldn't wait to watch Ax Men.  Evan was up next and started right in on his survival mode world.

Alec played video games for a bit and then asked me to teach him how to sew.  He had ripped the neck of his brand new stuffed animal at his party while having a fight with his brother and I had offered to teach him how to repair it.  We sat down and he sewed the whole thing up; he was proud of himself when he was done and told me that it had been pretty easy to fix.  He did a pretty good job for his first sewing assignment!

Ian and Alec both made eggs for breakfast.  Alec even offered to make breakfast for Evan.  I had to review how to cook scrambled eggs with Alec since it's been a while since he has cooked eggs.  He made me double check to make sure he didn't drop any egg shells into the eggs  before scrambling them.  Evan offered to set the table since Alec was cooking.  They all settled down to eat and we talked about our day.

Alec had been reading Warriors all during breakfast and for quite some time after breakfast.  He finished Twilight (which he has started late on Saturday) and started in on Sunset by lunch.  Ian decided to go read another chapter in Roscoe Riley and Evan surprised me by asking to work on two different things for sight words today.  He wanted to do two pages in his Star Wars Phonics book and he wanted to do a few more of the picture pages we worked on last week.  He also read Biscuits New Trick.  Each of the boys worked on some math too.
 
Ian worked on a watercolor dolphin picture while waiting for his brothers to finish up all their work.  He had fun mixing up his own colors rather than trying to recreate the ones on the chart.  We was pretty proud of the colors he made on his own and ended up finishing the entire picture in one sitting.

All completed 

By 10 o'clock I had all the boys change into old or work clothes and we all went to paint the basement with a coat of primer.  

They took turns with the rollers and brushes; even using the roller extensions to reach some of the higher places on the wall.

• We reviewed how to properly load  roller so that paint isn't dripping off it everywhere.  
• We reviewed watching for drips on the wall and rolling them in to a nice smooth finish.  
• We talked about what needed to be painted and what didn't.  
• We talked about why we start with primer and not the actual paint color first.  
• They learned to wipe up any mistakes with a wet rag before it dried and that paint does indeed stain clothing and shoes.  

They all took turns using the ladder and painting the corners with the brush and a mostly empty paint can.

After an hour or so the younger two had lost interest in painting and it was just Ian and I left.  We finished the whole basement and primed the stairway leading to the basement as well.  Ian offered to wash off the rollers while I cleaned up the rest of the cans and paint trays.  We both talked about how sore we were and how much work it is to paint a house.

Look at that crew! 

I love knowing that my boys will have many skills at their disposal when they are old enough to move out on their own.  I try to include them in as much of the running of the household as I can so they can build on their skills and gain confidence.  After all, life skills are pretty important too!

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