Most teenagers dream about being out in the world, living on their own. But what about the challenges “adulting” brings? Many teachers have a passion for teaching students the life skills they need to take on the real world. With a focus on nutrition, healthy relationships, parenting, personal development and employability, here are our favorite hands-on learning aids for teaching your students life skills that will help prepare them for adult life.
Food Preparation and Nutrition
Knowledge of proper kitchen and food safety precautions, nutrition and sustainable food systems are essential for healthy living as an adult. Students armed with this knowledge will know how to handle themselves successfully in a kitchen (whether at home or on the job).
This Food Safety Kit offers excellent lessons on basic food safety, foodborne illnesses, preventing foodborne illness outbreaks and more. In addition to the 8 hours of curriculum, students can enjoy a food safety trivia game to reinforce important life lessons learned with this kit.
Use our Kitchen Safety Kit to introduce basic kitchen safety concepts and techniques to your students so they are aware of various kitchen hazards. Bonus: this package includes materials to set up hazardous kitchen scenarios to assess your students understanding of potential safety issues.
This Knife Safety Kit provides important handling and storage of knives. Plus, students will love learning and practicing different knife cuts.
These hydroponics units allow for classroom activities and discussion concerning proper nutrition and food sustainability.
Healthy Relationships
Relationships change frequently and sometimes even unexpectedly. By helping your students learn to identify healthy versus unhealthy relationships in both platonic and romantic situations, they’ll learn how to handle rollercoaster relationships, heartache and more. They’ll also address the financial impact of a baby, which is a great time to discuss budgeting and balancing costs.
The lesson plans that accompany RealCare Baby® address these issues and others. You can access our RealCare Baby curriculum for program resources on the following topics:
- Healthy Choices
- Life Skills and Healthy Choice for Middle School Students
- Healthy Relationships
- Communication and Dating
- Sexual Wellness and Decision-Making
Parenting and Child Development
Parenting doesn’t come naturally for everyone. Exposing students to different parenting styles, the financial impacts of raising a child, growth stages and other parenting topics will help your teen students develop important life skills – whether or not they become parents.
You can identify the stages of prenatal human growth with this Fetal Development Kit.
The Quints collection of infant simulators will help you lead engaging discussions for students to recognize dangerous activities that hinder in-utero development.
Of course, the world’s most advanced infant simulator, RealCare Baby®, is used by educators around the world to teach early childhood, parenting, infant health lessons, and sex education. Our RealCare curriculum includes lessons on basic infant care; parenting styles; nurturing, attachment and bonding; the financial impact of raising a child and more. This smart baby adds meaning and accountability by using wireless programming to track and report on caregiver behaviors.
Personal Development and Leadership
Students will spend their lives assessing goals, values and individual qualities to help strengthen their skills both professionally and personally. Tools like our Online Leadership Skills Program, which addresses soft skills like integrity and empathy, will help teenagers to start working their goals and incorporate new skills into their regular routines.
Employability
Speaking of daily living habits all students need for success, employability skills are life skills all employers seek in qualified job candidates. This age-appropriate Employability Skills Program uses hands-on activities and real-world applications to teach 20 highly sought-after soft skills today’s employers insist on. Teenagers looking to implement life skills for employment will welcome lessons on interviewing, presenting and managing stress, for example.
“Adulting” is hard. But with proper education and guidance, students can develop the skills and abilities they need to adapt and deal with the ever-changing demands of daily adult life.
Learn more
Looking for more information on teaching life skills? Consider these resources:
- This blog, “Teaching Teen Interpersonal Skills for Life: 7 Engaging Lesson Ideas“
- Try our online Employability and Leadership Programs for free: Start a free trial of both our Online Employability Skills Program and/or our Online Leadership Skills Program
- Download this free guide: 5 Ideas for Incorporating Soft Skills Into Any Classroom