Category: Foods & Nutrition

Gnocchi Mini-Lesson & Lab

Sometimes it’s fun to interject some international foods into your repertoire of lessons even if you don’t teach an international foods class. Doing so gives you the opportunity to expand the knowledge and tastes of your students who might not otherwise be exposed to these areas and/or foods. Let’s say you’re teaching a lesson on one of the following topics: pasta, potatoes or dumplings…this would be a great time to introduce your students to an Italian food using this Gnocchi Mini-Lesson and Lab. 

Rock Candy Mini-Lesson & Lab

Some call it stained glass candy, some call it hard tack and some call it rock candy!  Whatever you call this sweet treat, it’s delicious and beautiful to look at! In this Rock Candy Mini-Lesson & Lab you’ll find information about the history of this festive food along with a simple recipe to make in the lab. Show students how to make this candy at home with their family or turn it into a beautiful gift to giveaway or have your FCCLA or club make up jars or bags to sell as a fundraiser.

Elevate the Box: Remixing Hamburger Helper

After watching an episode of The Bear and seeing Sydney elevate an ordinary box of hamburger helper into a gourmet worthy dish, I knew I had to create a lesson and cooking challenge lab around it. Thus, Elevate the Box: Remixing Hamburger Helper was born!

Math in the Kitchen

Many students hate math and don’t see the relevance in the real world! If you can relate, you know that students will grumble, complain and resist doing math at every turn, especially when a fraction is involved. Math in the Kitchen was created based on a book I read where one of the main characters, who loved to cook, struggled with math. Her friend took a recipe and changed the wording to include math problems where basic multiplication, division and fractions were used to decode the actual ingredient amounts. I thought this was a clever way to have students practice math and see the real world connection in cooking and baking, so I created a few. Read on to check them out!

Ultra-Processed Foods

Ultra-Processed Foods…talk about a topic that is in the news regularly…this is it! To help students learn more about Ultra-Processed Foods, I’ve created a variety of activities around the topic including chat stations, a drag and drop food sort, a dilemma for students to investigate and even a flashslide and warning label follow-up. Pick and choose or do them all!

Brain Foods Mini-Lesson & Lab

Did you know that your brain needs fed with certain foods to function properly just like the rest of your body? Introduce students to these foods with this Brain Foods Mini-Lesson & Lab and the importance of daily consumption for school success! It’s an engaging way to get their brain and school year off to a great start!

Guess Who? Games

Set the tone of your class by engaging students right off the bat! Try using one of the “Guess Who? Games”, especially if you teach a food, fashion or child development class. These games get them thinking creatively, communicating and moving pretty quickly. Not only will you set the stage to the type of classroom you will run, but it let’s them know that your teaching style is probably very different than most typical classrooms!

Kitchen Sink Cookies Challenge

I’m sure if you teach a food class and run labs you know that you always have a few odds and ends type of ingredients leftover. It’s just how it is no matter how hard you try to calculate them correctly! Having students prepare Kitchen Sink Cookies Challenge is a great way to use up all of those ”bits” of leftovers in a tasty, creative way!

What’s in Your Cart? A Receipt Analysis Activity

No two grocery carts are the same! Everyone has different food preferences based on a variety of food influences. You can tell alot about a person’s food habits and dietary lifestyles based on what you see in their cart. In this What’s in Your Cart? A Receipt Analysis Activity students infer, analyze, reflect and make connections to MyPlate and create meal plans all from the grocery cart receipts! The beauty of this activity is that you can choose to do only certain parts or you can assign the entirety to students.

Marshmallows: Mini-Lesson & Lab

I don’t know if this happens to you, but it happens to me quite frequently. Let me explain…I can go for a long time never seeing anything about a specific topic and then all of a sudden it’s everywhere!  This happened with homemade marshmallows. All of a sudden, I’m seeing videos, blog posts, social media feeds, etc. about homemade marshmallows everywhere. Maybe it was my sign to create this Marshmallows: Mini-Lesson & Lab for you to use with your students!