3 Reasons Life Skills Are Important
There are many life skills that are important but all are merging into three main topics. Students need to have education and training skills, employment skills, and independent living skills. These are extremely broad areas. So, the question for special education teachers comes down to what is the most important?
This can change with your group but there are always a set of skills that students need to have. I want my students to have effective communication skills, the ability to follow directions, and the drive to work.
When thinking of these, there’s no doubt that life skills are important. Working on communicating, following directions, and motivation are daily activities that are found in pretty much every class.
But with students with special education who might not be receiving a high school diploma these might be even more important. This means that the instruction needs to be more specific.
It’s also important that the students understand that these life skills are important. My students and I talk a lot about my need for a paycheck. While I love them all, I couldn’t go to work everyday if I stopped receiving my paycheck.
Making the connection that a set of life skills translates to earning a paycheck and buying things you want and need is powerful.
It’s also important that the students understand that these life skills are important. My students and I talk a lot about my need for a paycheck. While I love them all, I couldn’t go to work everyday if I stopped receiving my paycheck.
Making the connection that a set of life skills translates to earning a paycheck and buying things you want and need is powerful.
Topics of Life Skills
For students with special needs I took a step back and analyzed what would make my students the most successful when they no longer had my support. Here’s my list of six main areas.
- Behavior
- Hygiene
- Manners
- Safety
- Tools
- Volume
Using these areas I now have a guideline set for how to support my students. Besides their daily lessons, I utilize file folders and worksheets for many of these activities.
How Do You Promote Student Life Skills?
Hands-on activities followed by reinforcing file folder activities and worksheets helps me to teach, promote, track, and assess my students’ life skills.
Every year my students and I work on laundry. I usually go and get some clothes that have been donated to the school by a kind parent. I heap them in a laundry basket and put them in my classroom for the lesson.
First, the class and I talk about sorting lights and darks. Then, as a group we sort the laundry. Next, we head over to the washer and dryer area for our hands-on experience.
Many of my students have never done laundry at all so this can be a completely new experience. We talk about the machines and go through the steps of how to add soap. Then, I demonstrate how many clothes to put in and how many clothes are too much. Next, we talk about how long the washer will take and how to plan to switch the clothes into the dryer.
Last but not least, we start the washer. After the time tells us to head back, we switch the clothes. I save sorting and folding for the next school day.
Life Skills Examples
A fun and easy life skill example that’s found at every school is cleaning. I give my students the opportunity to assist the school’s wonderful janitors.
After planning with the janitors, I’ll set aside days that we can help in the cafeteria. This involves cleaning tables, sweeping floors, and moving furniture.
I do the same thing with sweeping and cleaning in the hallway. Just like the laundry, many of my students have never swept the floor. It’s such a valuable skill and offers instant gratification as they get to see what their hard work has accomplished.
At the school district where I work, my students with intense special needs will receive the opportunity to do a job like this in high school and get paid for it.
They can apply for cafeteria positions in the afternoon school day including cleaning, supervising, and food prep.
The actual money the students get for this real job fills their wallets and give them a sense of pride in their abilities and their school. I highly recommend this become a valued part of all student’s education into why life skills are important.
Life Skills for IEPs
IEPs (individual education plans) for students with special needs show life skills are important by providing a separate and required section. Within the IEP for students of a transition age, a document or summary must be included to show evidence or lack of evidence of the student’s ability to live independently.
When I first started writing IEPs, this was daunting. I was given a set of hammydown transition assessments and they were so boring. To be fair they most certainly did focus on the topic that life skills are important and try to define those life skills for the students.
But, oh my gosh, if I despise giving them how in the world was I going to get real information from the students? After two years of doing transition assessments I said I was not doing any more until I’d created something meaningful.
The set that I created services students with high academic abilities through students with little to no mode of communication. The life skills worksheets provide opportunities for students who are college bound to reach their goals. They also help caregivers make plans for students who are medically fragile plan for their future.Activities on Life Skills
I always sit with the kids and help them fill this out by reading it aloud and answering any questions they might have. Questions these type of worksheets asks about all the things they can do. I love the look on their faces when they start admitting that they don’t know how to do laundry or cook food or clean because nobody makes them at home.
I’m sure you can imagine how many parents and caregivers jump up and down that this has been brought up at school. They now have the opportunity to hold their students accountable for participating in their own well-being.
All of these transition assessment pages can be used to write life skills goals on the students’ IEPs. I use this information to come up with a measurable goal and support system to advance their understanding that life skills are important.
Activities on Life Skills
Walking your students to the laundry area might not be practical weekly and you might not even have a washer and dryer at your school!
The same thing goes for helping your custodians around the building. Your principal might not be supportive or your janitors not cooperative.
No worries! Keeping in mind that life skills are important, I turn to file folders to save the day.
Life skills are important enough to create a batch of file folders. When I create file folders I typically like to use three different kinds. I make matching, sorting, and sequencing sets.
I truly think that a person’s behavior is the most important factor of their successes in life. Because of this, the first set of file folders that I created are all about behaviors.
I use these to reinforce classroom rules and to teach how to control your behavior. Good choices and bad choices are something that stay with us throughout our lives. Using this idea, I created a behavior file folder that sorts the behaviors in two types of choices.
While being a good friend might not be the first thing that comes to your mind when discussing the topic that life skills are important, but it really is essential. Being a good friend goes hand-in-hand with being a good employee. And, yep, you guessed it, I’ve got a file folder for that.
In preparation of my students entering the workforce, I made to file folders about dealing with management. One is called How to Talk to Teachers and the other one is Think About Your Actions.
Both of these give the students long-term skills they can apply throughout their life.
Worksheets on Life Skills
While I love file folders and the individual reinforcement they offer, they are more challenging to document. Yes, I can take a picture of the students’ success with them but it’s not as easy as collecting a worksheet. I actually have to remember to do it (hahahaha) and then download it into their digital file. They have to label it with their name and the date. Next, I would need to attach a rubric to it.
Can it be done? Absolutely. Do I do it? Rarely.
Instead, when I need full fledged documents to show ongoing progress, I use worksheets for life skills.
I also created an all about me page which has a bunch of checkmark boxes. This reduces the writing problem that I discussed with the student interest survey. This worksheet examines what a student is able to do in regards to chores. It also defines their favorite subjects and what their educational goals are.
One year I was using this worksheet with a high school junior who I had known since he was five. We both very much enjoyed each other’s company and had a high level of trust and respect. When I read the section about where he’d hoped to live, he very sheepishly replied that he’d like to live in the woods in a house he’d built with a wife and child.
Like most of us, he was curious of what a person he respected would say to this personal comment. I smiled, and with all the truth in the world, I responded with, “That sounds wonderful. I’d love to see your home and family there some day.”
Believe me when I tell you that after saying this, he exhaled quietly and let another slight smile slip out. Of course, he can do these things! He knows life skills are important! I was so honored to be able to validate his dream.
My dear friend, examine what life skills are important for your group of students. Give them the tools and the strategies they need to succeed in life.
Students Life Skills
To see the file folders featured in this article, click here. Worksheets to document that life skills are important can be found by clicking here to view Caroline’s transition assessments for IEPs.
