Life skills, business and psychology for students
A student can read well and multiply fractions and still not know how to make change, cook a safe meal, calm down before a hard conversation or tell when an ad is trying to change their mind.
Those used to be learned along the way. For a lot of families, "along the way" does not happen anymore. So we teach them on purpose, as three real subjects, from kindergarten to grade 8. We call them Real-World Skills.
Today they got their own free practice sheets, 50 questions per grade in each subject, with answers.
What are Real-World Skills?
Three subjects, in every grade:
- Life Skills: money and time, safety, health, the kitchen, the home, manners, teamwork and self-control.
- Entrepreneurship and Business Thinking: spotting problems, costs and profit, customers, fair prices, honest business and pitching an idea.
- Psychology: how the brain learns, memory, habits, emotions, motivation and getting along with people.
They sit beside the core subjects. They do not replace them.
What life skills should students learn, by grade?
Here is a sample of real topics from our Life Skills lessons:
| Grade | Example topics |
|---|---|
| Kindergarten | Your name, address and phone number; washing hands; naming feelings; coins, needs and wants |
| Grade 3 | Basic first aid; online safety and screen time; budgeting an allowance; safe snack prep |
| Grade 5 | A family emergency plan; handling peer pressure; saving, banks and interest; cooking a simple meal |
| Grade 7 | Saving goals and compound interest; managing stress; healthy boundaries; career exploration |
| Grade 8 | Credit, loans and debt; reading a pay stub; your digital footprint and spotting misinformation |
Middle school is where these stop being cute and start being urgent. A grade 7 student who understands compound interest has a real head start on the first credit card offer.
Why teach psychology to students?
Because it is the owner's manual for the equipment they learn with.
Our Psychology lessons are not clinical. No diagnosis, no therapy, no screening. They teach things like:
- Grade 2: the feeling brain and the thinking brain, memory tricks, self-talk.
- Grade 5: thinking traps, persuasion, resilience, staying calm in conflict.
- Grade 8: calming strong emotions, making decisions under pressure, social media and the mind.
Some of it pays off on the very next school day. A large review of study methods found that quizzing yourself and spreading practice out work much better than rereading and highlighting (Dunlosky and colleagues, 2013). A student who learns that in grade 3 studies better for years.
Does social and emotional learning actually work?
The research is encouraging. A review of 213 school programs that teach social and emotional skills found an 11-percentile-point gain in academic achievement (Durlak and colleagues, 2011). A follow-up review of 82 programs and more than 97,000 students found benefits that were still there months and years later (CASEL summary of Taylor and colleagues, 2017).
Money lessons help too. A review of 76 randomized experiments found that financial education raises money knowledge and improves money habits (Kaiser and colleagues, 2022).
Why business, and why so young?
Business thinking is arithmetic with a reason. Subtract costs from sales and you have profit. Compare two choices and you have opportunity cost. It also teaches people skills: listening to a customer, negotiating fairly, bouncing back from a flop. We wrote a full post on it: Entrepreneurship for kids: why it matters.
How do I teach life skills at home?
- Pick one Real-World Skills subject per week and teach one topic. Each lesson is about 40 minutes and tells you what to say.
- Make it real. Cook the meal. Count the change. Write the family emergency plan together.
- Use the free practice sheet after the lesson to check what stuck.
- Keep the evidence. A budget, a business plan or a photo of a finished meal is good portfolio material. Our post on homeschool record keeping shows how to file it.
What can we try for free?
- Free practice sheets in life skills, business and psychology, for every grade.
- Free workbook samples: the first topic of every workbook, with the answer key.
- Flashcards: vocabulary decks for life skills, business and psychology, ten free cards in every deck.
- The Foundation Assessment: a free placement test in math, reading and English level.
- Free games.
When you want the full lessons
- One subject, one grade: a workbook in Life Skills, Business or Psychology.
- All three for one grade: the Real-World Skills pack, in the grade bundles.
- One subject for every grade: a subject bundle, for example Life Skills K–5 or Psychology 6–8.
- Every subject on screen: a membership, for up to 10 students at home.
- A class or co-op: group plans.
Every lesson and sheet comes in English, Spanish and Portuguese. If there is a life skill you wish we taught, tell us on Share your ideas. We also wrote earlier about why we teach life skills, business and psychology.
For money skills in particular, see what to teach about money at each age.
Common questions
What are Real-World Skills?
Three subjects we teach in every grade from kindergarten to grade 8: Life Skills, Entrepreneurship and Business Thinking, and Psychology. They cover money, safety, health, cooking, teamwork, how the brain learns and how to handle strong feelings.
Is psychology appropriate for young students?
It is taught as how your brain and body work, not as clinical content. There is no diagnosis, no therapy and no screening of any student. Kindergarten starts with naming feelings; grade 8 covers decision-making under pressure and how screens affect the mind.
How much time do these subjects take?
Each topic is one lesson of about 40 minutes. Many families teach them a couple of times a week beside math and reading.
Are there free worksheets for life skills?
Yes. There are free practice sheets for life skills, business and psychology in every grade, K–8, with answers, in English, Spanish and Portuguese.