***not pictured Grayson Copeland and Kirsten Richardson
Life Skills is aimed at improving the quality of life. It is primarily concerned with helping individuals to develop attitudes, values, skills and knowledge that will enable them to make a meaningful contribution to their family life, community and workplace.
Life skills contributes to the whole curriculum when it is viewed as a design for successful living, personal development, technical expertise and career opportunities. Life skills also provides the opportunity for developing the skills and capabilities necessary for meeting demands in the world of work. The goal of this class is to produce well rounded, informed citizens.
The main activities are centered around financial decision making, home and auto repair and maintenance, nutrition and cooking, basic manners, job seeking and interviewing. These basic life skills can be used to optimize expenditure by performing tasks and producing items, which would otherwise be purchased.
We started the new school year off by building bottle babies! The senior girls-built babies out of 2L bottles and added accessories to them such as, clothing, pacifiers and facial features. They were then responsible for them for an entire week, learning about both parenting and baby-sitting skills, along the way. Practiced writing thank you notes to prepare them for their upcoming graduation and collaborated with The Kingstree Chamber of Commerce and helped decorate the town in preparation for Thanksgiving. They’ve helped our school’s appearance by decorating hall bulletin boards for different holidays, as well as, inspiring our young ladies with a newly decorated restroom, full of inspirational quotes on the walls and stall doors, which the students love! Decorated a really cool fall scene outside of the school called the scarecrow mobile. They then learned about checking and savings accounts, writing checks, balancing a check book, filling out deposit and withdrawal slips, drafts, automatic payment and the basics of a debit and credit card. They learned about mortgages, auto loans, simple bank loans, interest, as well as, escrow. Informal and formal table settings, table manners, telephone manners and rules of introductions. They’ve learned about time-management skills, goal setting, etiquette, social skills, flag etiquette, branches of the military, art of budgeting and expenses. We’ve also discussed bible basics, new and old testaments, bible organization and important bible facts. We joined the boy’s life skills on several occasions to learn about woodworking, the girls were able to use multiple power tools and help make cornhole boards, picnic tables, wood for Christmas projects that were sold at the holiday market in our gymnasium this past Christmas. They’ve also learned the basics of doing laundry, which will come in handy when they venture off to college! They were able to test their cooking abilities when we prepared appetizers, entrees and desserts! We’ve enjoyed many foods and they’ve learned some basic cooking/baking skills that they will be able to use in college. We’re looking forward to adding even more skills in the upcoming weeks!