charmpacksplus

When I took Home Ec back in the 70's, we made a sleeveless pullover blouse with darts and hook/eye closure, an a-line skirt with a waist band, button, and zipper, and a jumper dress with a long zipper up the front. We had to hem the garments by hand.

theoldgraymare

Basic mending: repair a hem, replace a button, shorten a garment.
Basic tools and how to use them: scissors, needles, pins, measuring tape, thimble.
Sew curtains, pillows, aprons, or other home decor. I don't think I would tackle clothing unless she showed some interest in it; nowadays store-bought clothing is usually cheaper than homemade.
The cookies project sounds like a winner! Maybe also some basic easy meals: spaghetti, tacos, baked chicken, etc. Of course salad, baked potatoes. Some grocery shopping lessons!

brenda21

The public schools have the students doing small pillows, drawstring bags, stuffed toys out of felt first then fabric and pillow cases.

Sew_Deer

My Home EC class taught us Sewing-learning how to sew on buttons, make button holes, doing a hem stitch, and a few other basics before making an apron and a simple shift/jumper dress. (I showed my grand daughters that jumper just a few weeks ago. They couldn't believe I was that small at that age.) Then there was cooking and the third session was learning how to knit. We knitted house slippers.

kwiltkrazy

In my Home-Ec class, we also had to do meal planning. It had to be balanced, and healthy. Also, we had to design something,ie. a dress, a quilt, hot pads..... I designed and made a heart quilt, all made from 1" squares and 1/2 squares, it turned out really nice, I gave it to my best friend for her birthday. The school had certain criteria we had to fulfill to qualify as an acredited class.

noveltyjunkie

Is the Home Ec curriculum available online?

I noticed you mentioned cooking. Nutrition is an important subject to know about. You didn't mention her age so it is hard to recommend what to start her with. I would not start with cookies, which are nutritionally very poor and very high in sugar. Maybe her GGM has a recipe for a family dish she wants to pass on?

When I did Home Ec we did first aid as well.

Budgeting is another important area (putting the Ec back into Home Ec)- you could work some budgeting into the sewing lesson very easily.

Good luck with it. It is a big responsibility to take on.

Rainbow

SO SO SOOOOOOOOOOOO TRUE. The WHYS are so very important and the knowledge stays with you and can teach her how to tackle other problems.

quilter on the eastern edge

My gosh, this takes me back to my school days. It was called Domestic Science at our school. The first thing we sewed was a basic bibbed apron. This involved drawing a pattern on a sheet of brown paper - Grade 5 girls are all different sizes and heights so there was no "one size fits all" pattern. Then we cut the pattern and sewed/hemmed the apron and attached the neck strap and waist ties. Once we had our aprons finished, then we learned to bake the basics - tea buns, cheese pinwheels, pancakes, mac and cheese, etc.. We made vats of orange marmelade for our annual school sale. We also did "fancy work" - made and embroidered cloths for roll baskets, tray cloths, etc.. We learned how to cross-stitch as well.

My Domestic Science teacher passed away a few weeks ago at the age of 94 - she was well loved by her former students if attendance at the visitation and funeral was any indication.

vjengels

I would suggest she go buy a pattern for pajama pants, or something easy, so she gets some good practice reading a pattern, learning the markings, etc..

Sharonsews

Having a student pick out what they would like to make may have them finish the project and enjoy learning. Anyone else have their first item made in Home Ec stuck in the bottom of a closet or (eek) garbage can? My apron stayed in the closet for years. When I "found" it again, I added lace, trims, etc to it and used it. But that was after I was hooked on sewing.