making lately: practical life lessons

Who's homeschooling out there? How's it going? It's devolving a bit around here... Hendrik was very enthusiastic about it the first few weeks, but now that we have a district-wide assigned plan and aren't getting his Montessori-focused work anymore, we're just ending up with simple worksheets, too-easy math, and baby-ish YouTube videos rather than actual teacher-recorded instruction. But I've decided he's going to be fine in the end - we'll do the work, make sure he's reading plenty, and take the opportunity to do way more practical life lessons than we'd otherwise be doing. That will serve him better in the future than silly worksheets, I figure!

He already had some regular jobs around the house, including helping to empty the dishwasher and putting food in Ginger's bowl, but here are some other practical life skills that we've worked on so far in this stay-at-home period:

• Sewing on a button (he even sewed this whole pouch)
• Cracking an egg
• Making his own oatmeal from a packet
• Dusting (very entertaining for a 6 year old if you use old socks as mitten dusters!)
• Weeding a garden bed
• Breathing/relaxation techniques (he and Peter do the Headspace app together daily!)
• Identifying piano keys
• Memorizing our address and phone numbers

Some of these are in the category of practical yet fun, while others are in the category of everyone has to pitch in when we can't have the cleaner come/you're getting one of these jobs if you even hint at being bored... but all good things to know how to do!

Others that we'll work on learning in the coming months, since clearly he's going to be home with me for some time...

• Riding a two-wheeler
• Sorting/folding laundry (or at least getting all his clothes right-side out because that makes me crazy when I'm folding laundry)
• Showering on his own
• Continuing to improve typing skills

What practical learning is going on around your house? We might need more ideas to keep little hands/mind busy!