home ec

holyhart · Post by **holyhart** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 3:43 pm

Looking through some of the lesson plans, I was trying to figure ways to incorporate a sort of 'home ec's' type lesson in as well. And while I haven't figured out a lot that tie in just yet (doesn't mean we won't still do baking/cleaning/sewing type stuff in our day....just don't know where it fits yet), I did think of this one.

This is for LHFHG

It goes with Unit 7, day 3, science discovery (story of Ruth was the history lesson ).

It talks about how Ruth had to gather barley in Boaz's field and the science discovery is making a 3-way picture of grass, barley or oats, and a barley product.

Anyway my thought for the home ec was to bake a wheat and barley bread that day! Here is the recipe if anyone is interested in it.

Wheat and Barley Bread

INGREDIENTS
3/4 cup wheat and barley nugget cereal (eg. Grapenuts TM)
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 egg
3/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons melted shortening
*optional: add dried cranberries or raisins

DIRECTIONS
In a small bowl, soak grape nuts in buttermilk for 1 hour.
In a large bowl, combine buttermilk mixture, sugar, salt, egg, and baking soda. Stir until sugar dissolves. Mix in the melted shortening and the flour. Pour batter into a greased and floured 9 x 5 inch loaf pan.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about 45 minutes. Cool.

holyhart · Post by **holyhart** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 3:44 pm

Does anyone else do a home ec lesson with their children? I would love to hear more ideas.

water2wine · Post by **water2wine** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 5:26 pm

I do. I have it with my son and my daughter. I do have a book that I use for both (not too far into either yet) but I will tell you what I think has been the most helpful. I have soux chef of the day and chef teams. Soux chef of the day is for helping me get dinner ready and the table set. The teams are for helping me bulk cook. I am also doing some "pastry chef" lessons. We do cake decorating, bread making, pretzels and things like that. I include them in home projects of every kind. And we are learning the art of organizing and cleaning together. By this I am helping them come up with solutions for keeping their rooms clean and organized. We chat and decide what will work, they do it or we do it together. We go to organizational books and Google pictures to get ideas to do projects with what we have on hand currently we are doing a craft room (next big project the garage). I think including them in real projects can give them some great skills.

My husband also includes the kids in projects he does that are more home maintainance and shop like projects. I purchased a few resources that I use for how to clean and fix things. One is a huge Martha Stewart Book. So when we have a problem we look it up and see how to fix it. For cleaning we look up and see how to clean it. We are going to do sewing too but I am putting that off a year or two. My girls also want to learn knitting, my son is more interested in shop projects. Eventually we will have them balancing a check book and doing menu planing and budgeting but they are all a bit young for that. My husband wants to also teach them about investing and money management but that will be later as well.

If the kind of apprentice approach is not what you are after and you just want a program to follow

Pearables has a good home cc program for girls by age and their Responsiblility program for boys could be considered home ec in a way. But The Youn Man's HandyBook Preparing your son on the homefront is more of what I would call home ec for boys and that is also very good.

holyhart · Post by **holyhart** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 11:26 am

No, I think I am doing more of an apprentice style. They help me clean, they help me cook/bake. They help with input into the weekly menu (although I always have the right to veto their input

), stuff like that.

Areas that I would love to improve (myslef) is in that I have no idea how to sew or knit....I wish I could teach her (and him as he gets older) how to do that stuff.

I love that you all organize rooms together. Being 5 and 2 I don't know that they will help all that much in that regard, but I like to involve them in stuff anyway.

6timeboymom · Post by **6timeboymom** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 11:36 am

what a fabulous idea!! *hifive*
I have the book "Life Skills for Kids" by Christine Field that I just love. I use it as kind of a checklist for what I want my boys to learn. It's funny how I read through it and think, "oh, sheesh! I can't believe I haven't taught them that!!" I assume so much of that they will pick up by osmosis, I guess...

holyhart · Post by **holyhart** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 11:46 am

I'll have to check that book out...your right, I too probably assume that just because they see me or dad doing it that they will learn it.

water2wine · Post by **water2wine** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 4:34 pm

holyhart wrote: Areas that I would love to improve (myself) is in that I have no idea how to sew or knit....I wish I could teach her (and him as he gets older) how to do that stuff.

When they get older you can do a Michael's class together. They have sewing, crafts and cake decorating. You can also learn to sew online now even. I loved on Mary's plans that they were doing home depot classes with her boys.

I also got the Life Skills for Kids book as well. I think it is really a big eye opener and I agree with 6timeboymom that it fits the way you are doing it. I had a lot of duh moments when I read it. Just things I would not have thought about doing but make a lot of sense.

Have fun!

MamaBear23Cubs · Post by **MamaBear23Cubs** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 8:34 pm

would life skills be under home ec? Everyone helps with the washing, coooking, cleaning and what ever else I can think of. My oldest really likes the American girl books and at the library they have cookbooks and craft books from some of the girls. We are currently rereading Felicity. I read it out loud and now she's reading it to herself. While reading the series we will do some of the crafts and recipes. At the end of it all we will watch the moive that goes with it. She is also reading Kit since they are having a thing at the libary about her and there is a movie coming out. She said after this book she is only going to read one at a time. She won't now because she wants to do both now:)

eazbnsmom · Post by **eazbnsmom** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 6:12 am

holyhart wrote:Does anyone else do a home ec lesson with their children? I would love to hear more ideas.

I just bought "Home Economics for Homeschoolers put out by Pearables. It is simple and nice for the elementary level. It has weekly lessons and covers cooking, baking, cleaning, sewing, organization and hospitality. I only have the first volume, but I believe that there are 3 of them. You can check them out at Rainbow Resource :

[url]http://www.rainbowresource.com/product/ ... 43-1958669[/url[/code]

eazbnsmom · Post by **eazbnsmom** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 6:14 am

holyhart wrote:Does anyone else do a home ec lesson with their children? I would love to hear more ideas.

I just bought "Home Economics for Homeschoolers put out by Pearables. It is simple and nice for the elementary level. It has weekly lessons and covers cooking, baking, cleaning, sewing, organization and hospitality. I only have the first volume, but I believe that there are 3 of them. You can check them out at Rainbow Resource :

http://www.rainbowresource.com/product/ ... 43-1958669