Learning Skills for Life

How to sort clothing before washing is an essential skill that everyone eventually needs to learn. The easiest way to teach kids how to sort it is to have them sort clothing, with supervision, demonstrate the skills they’ve learned, and then to teach another person how to do it.

The first step a kid can learn doing laundry is to sort their laundry by color. Even the toddlers can learn to sort by colors and take the first step in doing their own laundry. Eventually they will learn how to sort by type of care etc, but this the best lesson to begin with.

Step 1 - Preparation:

Everyone seems to fear getting clothing mixed up and dying something the wrong color. In fact, many grown-ups still dye cloths because something is missed in the sorting process. An easy way to help your family determine which colors belong together is to develop a color chart, and hang it on the outside of the laundry sorter with large rings. You can create it digitally, or by hand.

Here is one way to do create a sorting color chart:

1. Use a paper punch (we used a heart) and punch out different colors of card stock to match the primary colors of clothing.
2. Print the title for that color scheme on a piece of card stock.
3. Glue the colored pieces of card stock under the title.
4. Trip the edges with fancy scissors if desired.
5. Mount on contrasting paper.
6. Laminate.
7. Punch holes for the rings and attach to your bin. Depending on the style you may need to attach it with Velcro, or adhesive.

Here is a sample of a completed one for the darks:

I created color charts for the following:

• Darks - Navy blue, dark green, browns, and blacks.
• Whites - show white, and light tan
• Brights - bright colors: reds, bright yellow, orange, etc.
• Lights - pastels, light green, light pink, light yellow, etc.

Then I then created two more that had pictures I cut out of magazines to use for helps:

• Blue Jeans, Dark Socks, and Sweatshirst (which generally bleed easily)
• Towels and Sheets

Step 2:

1. Have them watch you as you sort your laundry.
2. Hold up a piece of clothing and match it to the color on one of the charts and place it in the correct basket. Explain why you are placing that particular piece of clothing in a particular bin.
3. After you have done a few piece of clothing this way ask them which bin they think the next piece of clothing should go in, and do this several times. Explain that sometimes things are not sorted by color and explain the additional categories of clothing you have. For example, I wash dark socks with jeans, and sort the towels and sheets into a separate pile. When I am washing bright towels I just grab the bright ones and throw them in. I simply don’t have the space to break it down into smaller categories.
4. Now have them finish sorting the rest of their laundry as you watch.
5. Teach them to place clothing that is especially dirty (covered in mud, etc.) in a separate pile to avoid getting the other clothing even dirtier.

Don’t worry about going into additional things like checking for stains, etc. on this lesson. The goal is to take baby steps. You don’t want to make it too overwhelming at first. When kids are overwhelmed it will feel like more of a chore. Develop this routine than add the additional steps one at a time.

Step 3

• Have them sort their laundry for several weeks. Check their work each time they have sorted the clothing.

Step 4

• Have them give a demonstration on how to sort laundry to the family, a 4-H club, or a scout group. Teaching others demonstrates proficiency.

We hope you enjoyed this post. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed!

I’m happy to report that this it is the third day since we demonstrated how to put away a CD or DVD and things are still on track. We haven’t had one left out since the demonstration. I know for many families that is no big deal, but at this household it was a problem. I spent one hour putting CD’s and DVD’s back in the case and the following day there was literally dozens of them on top on the DVD player, the TV, and on the entertainment centers shelves. McKayla couldn’t decide what to listen to or watch.

We’ll keep monitoring the progress for at least 30 days and then it should have become a habit and second nature.

I had told my daughter many, many times to put away the CD’s and DVD’s when she was done with them, but still they were constantly being left out. Something as simple as demonstrating to me the proper way to do it made all the difference in the world. That is the power of experiential learning.

Tell me, and I will forget.
Show me, and I may remember.
Involve me, and I will understand.

Confucius

My goal in teaching my children life skills is to arrange particular experiences (experiential learning) that are conductive towards my children learning particular skills. After all, one can read all about how to make bread, they could watch a baker prepare the bread, they could taste the bread, but one cannot have truly mastered the art of bread making unless they experience the process themselves.

I was first introduced to the term “experiential learning” as a 4-H leader. Experiential learning is well suited to the acquisition of practical skills, and the model that 4-H uses to teach all sorts of skills - from how to build a robot, how to raise a sheep, how to take a photograph, and how to prepare a meal.

My demonstration before asking them to demonstrate for me isn’t a true experiential learning experience. With true experiential learning they would do before being told or shown how. However, since I knew that my daughter truly did now how to a task as simple as putting a CD or DVD away I opted to demonstrate it myself to emphasize the point that it simply wasn’t being done.

We are taught as 4-H leaders to sit on our hands and keep our mouths closed in many situations. What better way is there for someone to learn how not to do something? Doing it wrong and correcting it is the perfect situation for learning, and I’d rather they learn it now while they are young.
Cooking is a perfect example of how this works:

A beginning baker may prepare a recipe and get the baking soda and baking powder mixed-up. True you may have ruined some ingredients, but what better way for them to learn what they each do. Everyone who has prepared a dish that traditionally contains salt and has forgotten it soon realizes how flavorful that 1/4 tsp. of salt can be.

The True 4-H Experiential Learning Model has five steps:

1. Experience the activity. Do it.
2. Share the results with someone else. This is often in the form of a demonstration.
3. Process the experience. Discuss it and reflect on it. Discuss what was done well, what could have been done better, and how one may change it the next time.
4. Generalize it. Relate the experience to their life. Sewing for example can be used to repair tents, or sew on military patches.
5. Apply. The learning is put to use in their life. That new cooking technique is not put to use in preparing other foods.

You can learn more about the experiential learning model and how to apply it by downloading the 2-page fact sheet (pdf) by Rutgers University and by visiting the Rutgers listing of experiential learning resources.

We hope you enjoyed this post. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed!

Lately our six year old has developed a habit of getting out countless CD’s and DVD’s and not putting them back in the cases. In fact, our family has developed too many sloppy habits. In order to teach the correct way to handle CD’s and DVD;s, in a manner that didn’t point fingers at one particular person we did an object lesson.

I called the family together and told them that I wanted them to watch closely. I pushed the eject button on the DVD player. Took out the DVD, and placed it in the case. I then placed the DVD back where it belonged. I also pointed out the easel that the case can rest on while the DVD, or CD was being used.

Then I asked each person to demonstrate exactly how to put it away.

So far it seemed to work. We haven’t had any CD’s or DVD’s lying around. McKayla watched Monsters Inc. earlier today, and I’m very happy to report that the movie is in the case and on the shelf right where it belongs.

We hope you enjoyed this post. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed!

Welcome to Learning Skills for Life.

We are the Watkins family, and we live in the USA.

The purpose of this blog is to document the life skills and life lessons we learn as we strive to achieve our personal best.

Topics we will include are:

• Money Management
• Home Management
• Gardening
• Study Skills
• Home Life
• Self Care
• Social Relationships
• Study Skills
• Communication Skills
• Time Management
• Career and Work
• and more…

We will have a separate food blog and cooking blog, and blogs on other topics such as science, language arts, art, and history. You see we do much of our learning at home.

Thanks for joining us on our journey. We will enjoy the company.

We hope you enjoyed this post. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed!