Children are our future and the basic homesteading skills they learn will help them face the future prepared.
More and more generations are turning back to the skills they learned as children to help them escape the face-paced crazy lifestyle that surrounds them.
I know for a fact, I ran back to the farming and homemaking skills my parents taught me when the world around me was closing in. I am thankful for those skills and hope I can pass them on to my children and grandchildren.
Forty years ago when my mother was making me cook dinner and do laundry all I could think of was wanting to go out and play, but she knew that the skills she taught me were the skills that would carry me through life.
I made it a point to make sure my children knew basic homesteading and homemaking skills before I sent them off into the world. As parents, we are never sure we’ve done the right thing or wished we would have done things differently, but the skills I made sure my children learned was one of the things I knew I did right.
Make it your goal to teach some basic homesteading skills to your children while they are young and still eager to learn:
Sewing/Crocheting/Knitting- Start off simple and small. Find a fun project that your little girl will love to make.
I started my granddaughter off with a simple square quilted baby blanket for her doll crib. It taught her how to cut fabric, to use a sewing machine and how to match colors.
Laundry/Sorting/Ironing/Stain Removal/Drying – Even children as young as 5 can start sorting laundry. Teaching them how to sort clothes into piles is the first place to start.
Teach them how to separate the whites from the colored clothes and the towels from the jeans. My three-year-old granddaughter can fold clothes better than me at times and loves sharing that job with me.
Cooking/Baking/Meal Planning/Preserving/Reading Recipes – My ten-year-old grandson just got his first kids cookbook and loves to make dinner for his parents. He is now inspiring to be a famous chef.
Cleaning/Schedules/Bed Making/Organizing/All-natural Cleaners – One of the first cleaning lessons a child learns is to clean their room. Take the time to show them the correct way to clean a room.
Help them learn how to organize their toys and make their bed. These very early lessons will be the lessons that carry them through a lifetime of living.
Gardening/Herbs/Flowers/Lawn Care – Children love to be outside, so make gardening a family affair. Teach them to tell the difference between a weed and a plant, help them learn where their food comes from and teach them ways they can feed their families by learning how to plant a garden.
Wood/Chopping/Splitting/Fire Starting – Young children may not be able to chop wood, but as they get older, especially boys should all know the basic skills needed to provide warmth for their family. Young children can learn to stack and haul wood…even if it’s one piece at a time.
Hunting & Fishing/Gun Safety/Woods Survival/Butchering – From an early age, our children and grandchildren have been subjected to chicken butchering, fish cleaning, and hunting safety.
Learning early on that every animal on the farm is here for a purpose helps them understand where their food comes from and they respect the life cycle. Basic small animal butchering was started at the early age of six or seven.
Basic Animal Husbandry –Even family pets fall under this heading. Children that learn from an early age what it means to raise an animal will most likely grow up being very capable of raising other types of animals.
Feeding, watering and cleaning up after an animal is a task even the youngest of children can learn. As they get older allow them to raise rabbits or chickens teaches them responsibility by providing for their basic needs.
Hand Tools/Basic Maintenance – All children should be taught how to use basic hand tools.
One of the greatest saying my husband taught all of our children was “Righty Tighty…Lefty Lucy”…to this day I can still hear them sing that little tune when trying to unscrew or tighten things with threads. Changing batteries in their toys or learning to use a hammer by building their first project is a great way to start.
Are there any homesteading skills you can add to this list?
I would love to hear what skills you feel are important to teach young children.
How to manage money is an important skill for children to learn.
Liz, That is a great addition to this list! Thanks for sharing it!
That’s about the age I learned to butcher chickens. I started gutting my own fish around then too. 😉
Great list, Tracy!
Another great post full of great ideas. Thanks for sharing at Good Morning Mondays. It is so important to teach our children basic and sometimes more technical skills so that when they are older it will be like second nature. Thanks for the reminder and some new ideas. Blessings
What age can you realistically begin to teach them knitting/crocheting/sewing?
My Grandma started teaching me to crochet before I really remember. I guess I was around 4 or 5 because I could hold a pencil and write my own name. Sewing began with sitting under her quilting frame during the “Bees” and pushing the needle back up through the quilt, also about 4 or 5. Today I would guess 6 or 7 to be the age for knitting/crocheting/hand sewing and about 9 or 10 for machine sewing. Earlier if the child is really interested. There are some really great ideas at Herrschners, along with kits and directions/patterns. Just be sure that the project isn’t too advanced for the age or skill.
I’d add- good social skills with everyone, grammar, proper use of the english language, punctuation, reading, math, science and technology. If they ever want to go to college, get a job somewhere, they will need all of those. And as a Master Gardener- a weed is a plant, just an unwanted or unappreciated one 🙂
Perfect! I love all the basic skills tips I am getting that we can add to this list! Thanks Nancy!
I would add basic first aid.
This really is a great list. These are the things I wish to teach my children too.
Hope to see you again at the Homestead Blog Hop today.
Pinned 🙂
The 3 R’s; Reading, Writing, ‘Rithmatic. Those are skills that are no longer taught. I was stunned to find out that they do not teach writing/penmanship in school anymore. Nor are our children taught how to do numbers in their heads. But the thing that really makes me see red is that no one is taught how to learn or how to think for themselves. There is no more education, just indoctrination.
Great list! Taking care of the critters and garden are some of my little guy’s favorite things to do! He hasn’t graduated to butchering yet ( and it will probably be a while before I feel comfortable letting him help with that), but he’s started learning most of the others 🙂
Some of these are plain ol’ life skills. Which many kids today might not get! Technology has ruined many skill sets. Visiting you from Paula’s no rules blog hop.
Great list! It’s so important to teach them all the basic skills; it makes kids feel confident in their abilities and more independent. Plus, it hopefully lessens the chance of them bringing all their laundry back home… 😉 Thanks so much for sharing over at #FridayFrivolity!
Life skills are so important. My son has Asperger’s and lie skills were a major part of homeschooling, as well as learning to learn which is a skill I think is too often overlooked. Thanks, loved this and shared. 🙂
Hope this weekend treats you kindly. 🙂
Nice article. Thanks for sharing useful information 🙂 keep Posting 🙂
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I have a 16 yr old homeschooled daughter. Right now I am teaching her to make supper from start to finish. She gets to plan, shop, cook, and completely clean up. She is really having fun with this every Monday night. She makes a 3 or 4 course meal with dessert. It’s nice for me to have the night off!