One of the life skills our children will need over and over is how to fill out forms.
Our children will fill out hundreds of forms throughout their lives. It only follows that practicing this necessary (although tedious) skill can ease the process in the future and hopefully prevent needless do-overs. I mean, how many times have you started to fill out a form, only to realize that you've been filling it out incorrectly? I know I have done that several times.
Forms and applications require names, birth dates, and addresses to be written in dozens of different ways. You can prepare your children for this real-world skill by introducing them to a variety of forms and actually having actually practice filling them out. I did this with my kids this last school year, and not only did they have a lot of fun doing it, but they really learned a lot!
Teaching Suggestions and Resources
- Teach your children how to look over a form first, before filling anything out. Have them check for directions such as "complete in blue or black ink" or "print only." Also have them take note of any parts that they do not need to fill out, such as sections that say "office use only."
- Have your children use this worksheet to practice filling in their name and birth date in various ways.
- Collect forms from around your community and have your children fill out the name, birth date, and address portions. Here are some ideas for some forms you might like to collect:
- library card applications
- forms at the post office (i.e. change of address, mail forwarding, etc.)
- tax forms
- applications for grocery savings cards (like Kroger, CVS, etc.)
- DMV forms
- order forms (such as mail order catalogs)
- magazine subscription cards (found in the magazines you have at home)
Teaching your child to recognize how to fill out different forms will be a better start than most of us have had. I still fail to fill out forms correctly sometimes because I don't always follow the steps I teach in this post.
For more Works for Me Wednesdays, visit Rock in My Dryer.
What a great life skill to teach!! I would never had thought of that on my own. I have a son that is 15 and goes by initials for his name and he's a Jr.. I could see where he could get confused on what he needs to put his official name on and what he can get away with using his nickname. Thanks for the idea.
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Excellent…gotta get some forms for Derek!
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That is a great life skill and hadn't even thought of teaching it. THanks for sharing! 😀
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Wow! This is a truly one of those life skills that I want my kids to learn. Thanks for posting about this. God bless!
Your work on this website is fantastic, but I must take issue with the idea of teaching our children to fill out forms/applications.
One of the reasons that we, as a nation, are in such serious trouble is that we have allowed ourselves – and more importantly, our children – to become indoctrinated to embrace the idea that we always need to ask for permission from those who claim authority over us. After all, our elected officials, and the bureaucrats that they hire, work for us (or at least that is how it's supposed to work.)
The Founders are probably rolling over in their graves that we have become so subservient.
I have chosen to homeschool my son so that I can teach him to realize his full potential and to live as a free human being, as our Creator intended.
In Liberty,
Jim
@Dr. James G. Allen,
I am a 13 yrold girl who is homeschooled and i completely agree with Dr.JamesG.Allen. INCLUDING the part about a CREATOR!
What a great idea! How have I never thought to teach this?? Printed for handwriting practice today – thank you!!