Author: M.Sandoval

Project Brainstorm: Help us Help You! This Month’s Subject: Child Abuse

We are going to pose a topic and ask you to “help us help you” by just sharing one thing you did whether it be an activity, a video clip, infographic, reading, etc. when teaching that topic. We believe everyone will win in the end as you’ll have a new lesson or at least a lot of new ideas and resources to pull from.

Consumer Promotions Lesson

If you’re like me you’ve been at the cash register ready to check out when the clerk tells you about some new rewards card or store credit card offer that may sound appealing. To make matters worse you may have rewards credit cards that beg you to use them to earn points towards your next airfare, or cash back. You may have thrown up your hands and declared I’ll take no special offers or you may be one to take most special offers. How do you navigate in the world full of offers for EVERYTHING? Which deal is the best? This lesson gives students an opportunity to look at specific scenarios with REAL companies’ offers and do the math.

Child Development Curriculum

Ever want to see what other teachers around the country are using for their curriculum? Here is a very short list of Child Development curriculum. Please feel free to leave a message below or send your school or state’s curriculum guides to
feedback@familyconsumersciences.com to be sponsored on this page. I know it is helpful to reference what others are doing to benchmark top programs.

Resumes, cover letters, and Linkedin for highschoolers

I can’t help but tell my students a story when it comes to this lesson about this time someone interviewed for a job at a place I worked wearing a pencil skirt, five inch heels, and a leopard printed sheer blouse that showed off her hot pink bra straps. My head still shakes thinking that this poor girl thought that it was an appropriate interview outfit. If only she had taken my class! This lesson is to help students prepare their interview and resume writing skills. If you’re looking for more on dressing for an interview take a look at this lesson.

4th of July Cake

It’s always fun to make something festive for the different holidays throughout the year. This is a 4th of July cake made with different jello flavors mixed into ordinary white cake mix. Make sure you think about how the flavors you choose will taste together.

Tower Team Building Activity

I recently led a team building activity that was really a lot of fun–spaghetti and gum drop tower building. The object of the activity is to work as a team to build the highest tower in the set amount of time. This activity is not only easy to prep, but also fairly inexpensive to put together.

May’s Teacher of the Month: Elizabeth Wilhelm

Elizabeth Wilhelm is May’s teacher of the month. If you think you are an innovative Family Consumer Science teacher enter to win the FACS Teacher of the Month competition by sending us your story!

“Cupcake War” Inspired Lesson

Students love the variety of food related shows that are on TV. One of the most requested is the Food Network show, “Cupcake Wars.” I personally don’t like to have competitions be graded but rather to be fun and to…

Baking & Pastry Equipment Tips

Sometimes there are seemingly obvious tips and tricks that we know about baking and pastry equipment that might be really helpful for others. I know when I was developing a brand new baking and pastry arts class, I knew nothing about commercial baking and every tip and “obvious fact” was hard to come by. So here is a list I’d like you all to contribute to so we can make it easier for new teachers.

Cake Decorating Unit

There are lots of cake decorating classes students can take at the local craft store so I thought I was off the hook when it came to cake decorating, but my students begged me so I gave in. I didn’t want it to be so complex and more of an overview so I planned a week (3 blocks) of instruction with practice then I had them work on their own cake for another 3 blocks and present the final results. In fact there was so much excitement from this unit, students actually came to class early. Ha!