Looking for a guilt free, low calorie, alternative to pasta that will surprise your taste-buds? Look no more! Spaghetti squash is one of those best kept secrets that needs to be shared! Not only is it easy to prepare, but versatile too. So what are you waiting for? Swap out that pasta for spaghetti squash and encourage your students and their families to try experiment and try something NEW.
Thinking about some new ideas for middle school labs got me to thinking about a lab I did early in my teaching career when I taught a foreign foods cooking class. At the time we were studying French cuisine and the lab was making homemade CREPES. Initially I was intimidated by crepes because they looked too difficult and fancy, but after working through some demonstrations with my students I found they really were a lot easier to prepare than they looked! Crepes are basically really thin, delicate pancakes filled with a sweet or savory filling. Since I know teenagers love desserts and chocolate is a favorite filling, I thought I would explore a recipe that would combine the two popular ingredients along with fruit and work a creative crepe lab back into the curriculum.
This idea came about because I was looking for an alternate way to assess my students about their knowledge of a particular unit or topic besides administering a test. Instead, I developed a partner or small group interactive, cooperative based…
Pinterest in the classroom? Absolutely! Pinterest is an online bulletin board where you can keep track of internet ideas and sources under specific categories or boards that you create. Like me, my students enjoy Pinterest so I thought why not…
It’s been said that the only thing that is constant in life is “change”. Our world is constantly changing and families are not insulated from the changes that occur in the society in which they live. One thing that seems…
After teaching several lessons on family structures, family functions, and family life cycle stages, I use this lesson/project as a way for students to review and apply information learned as well as a way for me to assess their learning. Students select a television family and create a TV Paper Plate Project using their knowledge of family to complete it. Students use mobile labs to research any unknown information about their TV family such as names of all family members or jobs TV parents held, etc.
The winner of the February give away is this lesson from Jessica Uplinger, a Family Consumer Science teacher from Ohio. In her lesson, students learn how important goals are and learn to make their own.
This is an activity I came up with after reading the What do Babies Think Lesson previously shared on the website. I couldn’t assign the experiment included in the lesson because my students didn’t have access to children in that age range, but I did find a site where students could find their own interesting picture of a baby and literally put baby’s thoughts into words. It’s called “Blabberize” and it’s super easy to use and free and my students had a great time with it. I made a class account and students just saved their work individually which also saved trees and in the end they can view each others work very easily.
After studying various cuisines from around the world students use technology to create their very own restaurant. Students decide on the type of cuisine they want to serve, the style of restaurant, the location, menu items, menu style & layout, and create a commercial. This is a project based unit incorporating 21st century skills!
This amazing lesson is the Winner of our Child Development Lesson Plan Competition! The goal of this lesson is to explore bedtime issues/fears of children & how to respond to them. Students will also create a community service project called “Fear-Me-Not” characters to help children in abuse shelters feel more secure and safe during their stay.
