Skills for Living

Madi is taking a Skills For Living class this semester at her middle school.  They will tackle, cooking, sewing, caring for a flour sack “baby” as well as other fun projects that will help equip her for “living”.  I am excited to see what she learns.  I still remember taking my Home Ec class in middle school and sewing a pink pig pillow and burning chocolate chip cookies!  ha.. I know that she will be making new memories as she goes through the semester.

Last week Robert & I were driving her to her 6 week check up appt from her Scoliosis surgery, and I asked her what project are they working on in her Skills For Living class.  She said they are making collages of who they are.  Robert immediately said, “wow, really learning the skills in there, are ya?” with a laugh following.  I jumped right in with my Mom Philosophy 101…

Here’s my 2 cents…I think making a collage is extremely important in helping your skills for life.  If you don’t know what you like, what you are hoping for, what you are dreaming about, how do you ever call it into your life?  If you don’t know what colors you like, what jobs seem interesting, what destinations you want to go to, how do you know if you are on the right path?  

I am a BIG fan of Dream Boards.  Have you heard of these?  It is where you make a collage of your dreams.  You look through magazines and cut out pictures of all that you want or dream about.  Maybe put your dream vacation spot, your dream car, your dream job, your dream mate, your dream house…etc.  Fill the page with things that make you smile, things you want to improve, things that you love and then spend a few moments each day in front of it.  I hung mine on the inside of my closet door.  This is a GREAT idea to do with a group of girlfriends or your children.  Have fun, be outrageous, and dream away!

How To Create Your first Board

• Purchase a large piece of paper such as “oak tag” or “poster board” in whatever color you like!
• You now have the beginnings of your Dream Board.
• In the center of your board put a picture of you that you really enjoy viewing.
• Whatever your dreams, goals, etc., start cutting out pictures that symbolize your dreams and paste them on your board.
• Or draw the pictures. Can’t draw perfectly? Draw it anyway! (If I can, you can.)
• Put captions under the pictures.
• What are some of your dreams? Remember to include all areas of your life on your board… Career/Business, Relationships (self-others), Money, Recreation/Play, Health/Well Being.. Get specific…. real specific and descriptive!
• Go for it!! Enjoy it!! Have fun with it!!
• Tack it on the wall.
• As your dreams continue to grow (or change), keep adding to it.
• Make it the last thing you look at before you go to sleep.
• Spend a few moments in front of it before you start your day!

 

Supplies You May Need

1. Poster board/oak tag
2. 4 thumbtacks
3. Elmer’s glue
4. Scotch tape
5. Glitter
6. A photo or photos of you
7. Magazines
8. Ribbons
9. Pens, markers
10. Shells, leaves, or something else from nature
11. Scissors: straight edge or your favorite border design
12. Crayons
13. Few pieces of thick 8 1/2 x 11 paper
14. Favorite rubber stamps
15. Your Ideas here

Special thanks to author Susan Ban Breathnach  for teaching about these concepts.

Ok, back to Madi.  So I told her that this collage is very important for her to learn what she loves and see where she would like to go.  Then Robert said, “cutting and pasting?  That’s a skill for life?”  Mom Philosophy 102 says:  YES!  It is very important to learn what to “cut out” of your life and what to “paste” in place.  If you don’t learn to “cut out” the negative, the depressing, the things that you don’t need, you will tend to carry around a lot more “baggage”.  Now, when you find things that you want to keep in your life, then you use your “paste”.  Things like love, friendship, kindness…these are the things in life you want to stick.

Well, needless to say, they were both speechless with my (what I consider AWESOME) attitude on cutting, pasting and making a collage to help with Skills For Living.  I guess my point is, there is always something to be learned in all that we do, the question is, will you use your insight to see it?  Will you let life teach you as you go along?  or will you simply think “what does this have to do with me?”

Maybe I should volunteer a JOY talk for their next Skills For Living class 🙂