Slider with recent posts

I would like to have a main page of recent blog posts and a slider at the top, while keeping menus on either side. This doesn’t seem to work because a landing page with a slider will not allow menus on either side, and a page of recent posts with menus at the slides will not allow a slider.

The only way to accomplish this nowadays, that I can tell, is to set up a sub-template, which would require forking the code. :/

There are two other ways I can imagine:

Either,
1. Add left menu and right menu widgets on the landing page, or
2. Add a slider widget on top for the recent posts page.

Is either one of these possible?

Thanks.