How to Bring Home Economics into the Modern Day: Library Edition!

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Home Economics went away years ago in many schools, including the one in my hometown. Kids aren't learning everyday skills in the classroom anymore. I had a regular day/time slot in my programming schedule that needed to be filled. Enter, "Not Your Mom's Home Ec.!"

The classes rotated between sewing and cooking. Reach out to your local college if you have one, or your state library for resources. They may have outreach programs to help you put this together!

Cooking Details:

For cooking, we focused on packing healthy school lunches, quick and nutritious breakfasts, and healthy snacks. The idea was to encourage the kids to try new things. They "cooked" with their grownup. Grownup participation was encouraged, but I helped those kids who were by themselves. For packing healthy lunches, we provided a reusable lunchbox (supply links listed below), ingredients, and cutting utensils. A hot plate and pot were also needed to boil our hotdog octopi! For breakfasts, try yogurt or oatmeal with a toppings bar, a trail mix bar for healthy snacks. There are so many things you can do with this! I also pulled some of our kids cookbooks for reference and displayed them during the program.

Supplies:

Lunch Containers: https://amzn.to/3Kn1CAn

Cutting Boards: https://amzn.to/4aNiKtY

Kid-Safe Knives: https://amzn.to/45bjiJ6

Hot Plate: https://amzn.to/4bRM4AI

An editable template of a few of the lunch recipes we made are here: https://www.canva.com/design/DAFM91dsLhM/1_JyB4NcxxC94TuB18ltzg/view?utm_content=DAFM91dsLhM&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=publishsharelink&mode=preview

Sewing Details:

Sewing classes included hand-mending stitches, sewing a button, basic sewing machine skills (we have 10 machines), and putting a drawstring back in a hood or waistband. I found a few beginning sewing tutorials on YouTube that we watched together, as well. Using large eyed needles and embroidery floss instead of thread is recommended for young beginners. I pulled some sewing books to display and for families to reference. To learn the blanket and running stitches commonly used for mending, we made little stuffed animals. When learning on the machine, we sewed cardstock to practice staying on the lines, without thread.

Supplies:

Felt: https://amzn.to/4e61W4r

Kid Friendly Sewing Needles: https://amzn.to/3yIzKnZ

Embroidery Floss: https://amzn.to/4aNyT2p

Large Buttons: https://amzn.to/3VjzMLQ

Bodkins: https://amzn.to/4bEGmSS

Sewing Clips: https://amzn.to/4e4afha

Poly Fill: https://amzn.to/4bZdmF1

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