Throw Back Thursday: Life Skills Room

Since I am gone on my honeymoon (!!!), I am posting some oldies but goodies.  This post was a little bitter/sweet to look at since we lost our life skills room this year!  Our school got a large influx of students and we needed to use all of the space in the school, so we lost our extra special life skills room.  We have taken some of the tasks and incorporated them into the classroom, but is hard to find space for activities like setting the table, or hanging clothes on hangers.  Oh well…that's life…but it is kind of fun to reminisce about this fun classroom we once had! 

A couple years ago, our principal gave my coworker and I an empty classroom for us to use as a life skills classroom.  We both wanted to incorporate these tasks into our classrooms, but many of them just took up too much space!  So, once we got the empty classroom, we combined some materials we already had with a trip to the dollar store.  I think we spent about $75 on that first trip to the dollar store, but that was enough to get the room up and running.  We also collected donations from friends (mostly clothes for our laundry area).

We split the room into four areas:  KITCHEN,  LAUNDRY,  OFFICE, and BATHROOM.  Then we created tasks that had something to do with these general topics (we currently have about 25 tasks).

Today I will show you some pictures of the tasks and tomorrow, I will show you how the room works (how it is scheduled, data collection, etc.)

This is from the KITCHEN area.  This task is setting the table.  The dishes we use are in the clear plastic bin sitting on the "table."

This task is sorting recycling items (sorting plastic bags, plastic, glass, and paper into recycling bins).  Above each bin, we have a photos of example items.  Other tasks in the kitchen area include sorting silverware, rolling silverware into napkins, sorting pictures of food by food group, and assembling lunch bags (putting in one plastic fruit, one water bottle, and a set of silverware into each bag), 

This task is from the LAUNDRY area.  Students find a matching pair of socks, fold them together, and put them in the finished basket.

This task is sorting laundry (darks vs. lights) into laundry baskets.  Other tasks in the laundry area include hanging clothes on hangers, and folding towels.

This task is from the BATHROOM area.  It requires the student to take body parts and velcro them onto the felt body.  Other tasks we have in this area include putting together curlers, sorting bathroom items (such as qtips, bandaids, flossers), and assembling bathroom bags (putting one comb, brush, and mirror into each bag).

This task is from the OFFICE area.  This task involves sorting paper by color into file folders.

This task involves collating and paper clipping.  Students take one sheet of paper from each colored basket, paper clip them together, and put them in the finished bin on the right.  Other tasks in the office area include sorting tasks, packaging straws, and putting tops on different size Tupperware.