i taught at juvenile detention for a couple of years and our basic classes started with how to thread a needle and tie a knot in the end! Find out how basic the skills of the class are and then go from there. I had 2 feather weights that I took with me each week and they all wanted to sew on the machines but I made sure they knew how to stitch by hand first. I have received notes from several of the kids thanking me for the skills I taught them because they found that it helped them to know how to do basic repairs etc.