The Russell County 4-H program offered a series of cooking classes to elementary school youth.  The youth learned basic kitchen life skills such as reading a recipe, measuring ingredients, mixing ingredients, using a stove, using kitchen utensils, and cooking/baking safety.  Teaching youth to cook not only instills basic skills for living, it also promotes responsibility, healthy eating habits, and self-sufficiency.  At the end of the program, the all of the youth indicated that they had learned how to read a recipe, how to measure ingredients properly, and could crack an egg. Most of the youth indicated that they could read a recipe and prepare a simple recipe by themselves.

Over 80% of the youth also had put their skills into practice outside of the 4-H meetings.  They had cooked some of the 4-H recipes at home and assisted their parents in cooking for their families.  Some of the youth had baked muffins, made English muffin breakfast sandwiches, pancakes, and French toast.  

At the final meeting, we made chocolate chip cookies in a jar, decorated ugly sweater cookies, and had a cookie exchange.  All of the youth brought a holiday treat and had to share with the rest of the 4-Hers how to make the recipe; we did this to add verbal communication and leadership components to the club experience.  Each youth left with a bank of recipes to make at home with their families during the holiday break.