When I first started teaching about employability skills, my lesson was pretty dull, a real snoozer! Over the last few years, I’ve reworked the lesson to make it more interesting and engaging for my students. One of my all time favorite movies, The Pursuit of Happyness, is also incorporated into this lesson because it contains a ton of examples of employability skills in actiont! Check out the lesson below if you need to spice up your employability skills materials!
Have you ever made the statement “I wish I didn’t have to go to the grocery store! I wish my groceries could be delivered right to my door!” According to the media, online grocery deliveries are expanding and on the rise. This was a recent feature in our local Sunday paper and it caught my attention! I thought it a great way to have students investigate, research and analyze how cost effective the convenience of these services actually are. So, check out the activities below and if you have any suggestions, please share in the comment section below!
If you teach about crisis or mental illness, then this culminating activity shared by Michelle Overman, a FACS teacher from Greenville Central High School, Indiana, is one for your “tool belt”. Below you will find a variety of activities that Michelle uses when teaching this topic to her Human Development class with some additional ones that I’ve added.
Kayla Pins, a Family &Consumer Science teacher from Iowa, who was featured HERE, has been busy creating Collards & Sense: A free curriculum for high school students that helps students make wise choices with their food dollars. She has graciously given me permission to share this amazing 10 day curriculum that is full of meaningful, engaging and enriching lessons and activities! It is designed to be taught by any teacher and in any class, Family and Consumer Sciences certified or not, and kitchen setup or not. Activities are hands-on but require very little prep or purchasing for the teacher.
Students love to doodle! Children love to color! Adult coloring books are everywhere! The theory behind this phenomenon is that it is a way to relax and decompress, in addition to being a creative outlet. So, is this really a good way to deal with stress or just a trendy way to promote a product? This lesson focuses on stress, and has students investigating this theory by researching and application before deciding whether it’s a good idea or a bad idea!
Finding an apartment, understanding the lingo and reading a lease should be skills that all young adults know how to do as they take on adulting responsibilities! I begin this lesson by having students decipher some common abbreviations that I’ve seen/heard used via an interactive game. Students then move onto deciphering actual apartment lingo, work with sample ads, read the classifieds (which may be foreign to some students) and eventually read and answer some questions pertaining to an apartment lease. This at least gives them an idea of what’s involved when the time comes for them to actually find an apartment!
If you teach anything about job interviews, you may want to consider using an episode from the television series The Job Interview. This show takes an inside look at potential employees as they interview for a specific job. Students get to see firsthand what the interviewees are wearing, how they act and how they respond to specific questions and problems. Employers react and discuss how each candidate’s mannerisms and answers impact their decisions. This show offers many great discussion points and easily holds the attention of high school students.
Another breakout here…this time with laundry! Laundry can be so dry and boring to teach that I wanted to put together something interactive and a little challenging for students to apply the information they learned. This is in keeping with my other breakouts as the challenges involve completing activities that lead to four digit codes that unlock succeeding boxes, ultimately, reaching the final prize box! I was not disappointed as students really worked well together in their randomly assigned teams, utilizing their knowledge and a little technology as they competed and collaborated to solve the challenges in under 43 minutes!
Over the past year I have viewed many articles about how to tell the difference between real news and fake news which got me thinking about the legitimacy of charitable organizations and donations. The consumer rights explain how we need to be informed so we can make wise choices. This is true of making charitable donations as well! After all, people want to make sure their hard earned money is truly going to the cause when they make their contributions! This mini-lesson shows students how to investigate their charities of interest so they can make an informed decision when making charitable donations!
This is a topic I’ve wanted to teach for a long time, not only because I practice it, but think it’s an important lesson for everyone to know and implement in their lives! However, that said, I was also a bit nervous introducing this lesson because I didn’t know how my students would receive it. Would they think it interesting and practical? Would they think it old-fashioned and a thing of the past? Would they even engage? Well, I can honestly say that my students were totally with me throughout this entire lesson! They shared personal stories and examples! They embraced the topic and were quite interested in the articles and stories I had them use, as well as the projects they were assigned! In the future and for the record, I will definitely be teaching this unit again, but this time with complete confidence!
