How to Adult: 101 Life Skills for High School Students
If you’re looking for engaging adulting activities or life skills lessons for high school students, you’re not alone. Many students need explicit instruction in real-world skills like managing money, handling emergencies, or navigating everyday adult responsibilities.
How to Adult: 101 Life Skills is a flexible, ready-to-use resource designed to make teaching these skills simple, practical, and engaging.
Use it as a daily warm-up, a quick activity, or a way to bring real-world relevance into your classroom without extra prep.
What Is It?
This resource includes 101 Google (or PowerPoint) slides, each focused on a practical adulting skill, like writing a check, handling kitchen fires, negotiating salary, or checking your tire pressure.
Each slide takes just 5–10 minutes and can be used as:
A daily warm-up or bell ringer
A brain break or discussion starter
A sponge activity or exit ticket
A life skills mini-lesson for transition planning or special education
Slides are organized into 9 categories, making it easy to skip around or tie into a theme.
Want more ideas for using these in your classroom? Check out: 101 Adulting Warm-Ups to Teach Life Skills
Try a Free Sample of These Adulting Activities
Want to see how it works before diving in? Grab 9 ready-to-use slides (one from each category) to test it out with your students today.
What’s Included
101 Life Skills Slides (Google Slides and PowerPoint)
Speaker Notes for each slide with helpful resources
Printable Life Skills Checklist
Student Organizer / Reflection Pages
Implementation tips for flexible classroom use
Why Teachers Love This Resource
✅ Zero prep – Just project a slide and start the conversation
✅ Flexible formats – Use in whole-group discussion or student-led activities
✅ Helps students reflect – Optional checklist and graphic organizer
✅ Real-world relevance – Covers the practical stuff we wish we had been taught
What Teachers Are Saying
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “My students try to avoid these conversations at all costs. This is a fun resource that makes it easy to build in "how to be a grownup."
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “This is an excellent resource! It's exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “This is a great resource for my elective class of seniors. I used the information from many slides as jumping-off points for longer lessons in the subject area.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Several of these were useful to guide my Paraeducator with activities for quick-finishers and those needing ‘adulting’ skills.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “I bought this to add to my resources for an adulting 101 elective course for high school students. It gave me lots of ideas I hadn't thought of.”
Topics Covered
Adulting topics span 9 categories, helping students build real-world life skills across multiple areas:
Personal Finance (e.g., budgeting, taxes, credit scores)
Car Care (e.g., jump-starting a car, checking tire pressure)
Health & Safety (e.g., prescription safety, emergency kits)
Social Norms (e.g., tipping, thank-you notes, etiquette)
Life Skills (e.g., laundry, grocery shopping, sewing basics)
Technology (e.g., data backups, email scams, safe passwords)
Home Maintenance (e.g., frozen pipes, fire safety, cleaning routines)
Civic Engagement (e.g., voting, jury duty)
Legal Topics (e.g., identity theft, getting a ticket)
👉 View the full resource on TPT or explore the preview
Who It’s For
General education teachers looking to build life skills into their routine
Special education or transition teachers working on IEP/ITP goals
Counselors, adult education instructors, or homeroom advisors
Anyone who wants to build real-world readiness into their daily schedule
Looking for a Full Adulting Skills Unit?
If you’re planning to teach life skills more regularly, this resource is also included in larger bundles that provide a full set of ready-to-use lessons and activities.
👉 Explore the bundles on TPT:
Ready to Dive In?
The full How to Adult resource is ready to go, with 101 life skill slides, built-in support, and flexible tools to help your students prepare for real life (without adding to your workload).
👉 Get your copy now on TPT and start building real-world readiness, one bite-sized skill at a time.
Want more ideas for using these slides? Check out this post:
👉 101 Adulting Warm-Ups to Teach Life Skills
It’s full of ideas for classroom use, plus a behind-the-scenes look at how the slides are structured.
