Kids in the Kitchen: Homeschool Home Ec

Home economics is a subject that blends seamlessly into a homeschool curriculum. Learning to cook, budget, and perform minor household repairs can impart skills that will serve your children well into adulthood. Annual Kids Take Over the Kitchen Day is observed on September 13 this year. Its mission is to encourage kids and teens to become more actively involved in the planning, preparation, and cooking of meals; foster family bonds; and take an active stance against the many serious health issues related to poor eating habits. Check out this Homeschool Living for helpful tips on teaching kids kitchen and cooking safety, fun, kid-friendly recipes, and more.

Home Ec Fun

This family’s fun version of the Food Network show, Chopped, makes an excellent game to teach different cooking skills, food pairing, creativity, resourcefulness, and even nutrition and teamwork. You can tailor the rules and available ingredients to fit your children’s ages and abilities. Challenge them to create healthy afternoon snack options, simple dinners, savory breakfasts, on-the-go lunches, and more. 

Home Ec Lessons

It can be hard to supervise kids of different ages and skill levels all working together in the kitchen. This handy cooking lesson guide from Self-Sufficient Kids provides examples of age-appropriate cooking tasks and tips for helping your kids build confidence and competency in the kitchen.

In addition to teaching valuable life skills, learning to cook can also increase kids’ self-confidence, encourage them to try new things, and provide a practical way to spend some quality family time together. It can be a big help for you too! Older children can be assigned to cook lunch or dinner for the family occasionally or as part of the family routine, and younger kids can be taught to put together and clean up after their own snack. Check out these 20 kid-friendly recipes for breakfast through dessert and everything in between!

Home Ec Cooking Safety

Kitchen safety is vitally important and requires learning much more than how to hold a knife and remembering to turn off the stove burner. Training your child in good safety habits starts very young. This extensive infographic includes tips on how to incorporate safe practices into your homeschool home economics with fire and burn safety tips, appliance safety rules, tips for cooking with young kids and pets in the home, and more.  

Interested in more homeschool cooking lessons and ideas? Check out this Homeschool Living blog post for excellent kitchen safety resources, and try some of the creative cookie recipes!