Category: Family

“UnBoxing” Video Topics for the FACS Content

I recently watched an episode of Adobe for Education and Matt Miller author of Ditch that Textbook (affiliate link) was on as a special guest. This episode focused on being creative while teaching remotely. His advice was to think outside the box, provide a fun twist when asking students to recall or share what they’ve learned about a particular topic. He suggested students share what they’ve learned in an unboxing video! How creative is that! My wheels started turning and I thought of so many ways that this could be used in our content. So join me, if you will, as I share “Unboxing Video Topics for the FACS Content! As always, if you have other ideas or you develop a specific project or assignment, please share and I will add them to the list!

My Life in Song

As the end of the school year draws near, I thought it appropriate to assign this distance learning activity titled, My Life in Song to my Individual & Family Studies classes. My Life in Song is a reflection activity that asks students to sum up their life in a minimum of 5 songs similar to how James Taylor did in a recent Parade Magazine interview. As with many of my recent assignments, this can be an E-learning activity as well as a traditional classroom assignment.

Family Resume

The Family Resume is a great project to culminate a family unit as it asks students to apply the information and concepts learned to their own family. This family resume project has E-Learning written all over it, but can definitely be used in a traditional classroom as well!

Building Strong Character in Children

Another big THANK YOU to Sharon Allen for sharing this Building Strong Character in Children remote learning assignment! The Building Strong Character in Children assignment is very similar to hyperdocs, where students move through each section, completing a variety of activities or assignments digitally. So, if you are in need of child development or parenting lessons, give this one a try!

Piaget Play-doh Mat Project (revised for remote learning)

First off, a big THANK YOU to Marissa Maltz for adapting the original Piaget Based Play-doh Mats (revised for remote learning) assignment. Marissa shared her revised Piaget Play-doh Mat Project sample with me via Facebook and I think she did an amazing job making it remote learning friendly! If you have adapted any of the lessons from this site for remote learning, I would love for you to share them back so I can post for others, just like Marissa did with the Piaget play-doh mat project! You can contact or share with me via email: kim@familyconsumersciences.com. Remember, we are all in this together!

Handwashing Activities for Distance Learning

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, many of us find ourselves having to provide activities or lessons to our students that can be shared through remote learning. The following “Handwashing Activities for Distance Learning” may offer you some ideas that you can share with your students for enrichment or new learning. Either way, they are practical life skills and habits to learn and practice during these difficult times.

Shopping Spree: Children’s Clothing

During this COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve been encouraged to create and assign lessons on topics within our content area that we’ve wanted to teach, but never really had time to because of state testing. In addition, the lesson(s) still had align with state standards. So, I decided to create and share this Shopping Spree: Children’s Clothing E-learning lesson. Please note that this lesson could easily be assigned in the regular classroom and fit into many different content areas.

Safety Hazards Room by Room Walk-About Activity

While you hope nothing ever happens, it’s important to child-proof a house for potential injuries just in case. It’s always better to be safe than sorry! The safety hazards room by room walk about activity is an engaging way to brainstorm and get students up, out of their seats, critically thinking, communicating and collaborating with their peers.

Life-Long Partner Shopping Spree

Several months back, I received an email about updated resources from The Dibble Institute. This update included an article about a university study, titled “What Youth Seek in Partners,” that sparked this life long partner shopping spree activity. I thought it would be interesting to recreate the study at the high school level and compare the results to the actual survey results. Initially my students thought this would be an easy activity, but on the contrary required much thought on their part. What was rather unique about the outcome of my survey, were the similarities of answers. My results, completed with two different classes, almost mimicked those of the university rankings. Read on to see other activities associated with this lesson/activities.

Reinforcing Family Concepts via Movies & One Pagers

To say that I’m a little obsessed with one-pagers would be an understatement! While worksheets are fine for assessing students on their knowledge of information, they don’t offer the creativity and engagement that one-pagers do. In this post I am sharing how I use “reinforcing family concepts via movies and one-pagers” as an alternative to a worksheet assignment. Two different program options are included just in case you don’t subscribe to Netflix.