Category: Life Skills Resources

Reclaiming the Kitchen with Casseroles

by K.Graybill • April 1, 2016 • 0 Comments

When I ask my students what they or their parents typically make for supper, I get a lot of similar responses. Most tell me they make and or eat whatever is easy, comes out of a box, comes out of the freezer, can be made in the microwave or picked up from a fast food restaurant on the way home. It’s so sad that convenience foods are so heavily relied on instead of preparing foods from scratch. This is one of the reasons I like teaching about casseroles! Not only are they easy to make, include a variety of foods and nutrients, but they can be made in advance, put in the freezer for future meals and convenience and because they get us in the kitchen cooking and using a lot of staple ingredients from the pantry. Way to go casseroles!

The Freshman 15 Game Board Project

by K.Graybill • March 25, 2016 • 2 Comments

During my unit titled “Off to College”, we talk about a variety of topics related to college living and dorm life. One of these topics includes the “Freshmen 15”. Students always wonder if it’s true and if so, how does it happen. Since students were curious, I decided to let them figure out the answers by having them research the topic and create a game board that incorporated all of the information they learned in a fun, creative and competitive way. Students took turns playing each others games, providing feedback and learning something about the “Freshman 15”!

Gifts from the Hands

by K.Graybill • December 11, 2015 • 2 Comments

Some of the most cherished gifts our family has received over the years have been made by the hands of the people we love. In fact we look forward to those gifts every year as they’ve kind of become a tradition. Sometimes those gifts made with love were born out of necessity due to limited resources available to go out and purchase store bought gifts, but many times they were made and given out of love for the recipient(s) of the gift. For example, many years ago, very close friends of ours began making us a delicious candy-like treat that can only be described as “Christmas Crack” because once you start eating it, you can’t stop! We love the candy and our friends and look forward to that gift every year! After all, how can you look at, use or consume that wonderful gift without thinking fond thoughts of the talented person/people who took the time to make it for YOU! Why not teach your students how they can use their talents, time and resources to make gifts of love to give to those in their lives that they cherish most during this Christmas and Holiday season?

Insurance: Mayhem Project

by K.Graybill • December 4, 2015 • 3 Comments

Teaching about insurance can get a bit intense and to be honest, sometimes boring. In order to make the insurance unit aMayhem.Project.Scene little more exciting and hands on, I had students create 3-D scenarios and scripts as though they were pitching new material for an insurance advertisement similar to All State’s Mayhem commercials. Students created some humorous, yet realistic scenes and then rotated through the stations to apply their insurance knowledge. How do you make teaching insurance more interesting and fun? Share in the comment section below.

Dry & Moist Heat Cooking Methods Lesson & Lab

by K.Graybill • November 13, 2015 • 3 Comments

I find that most students don’t know the difference between dry and moist cooking methods. This lesson and lab help them to understand the difference and explore the various ways that the same food can be prepared using different methods. Students enjoy the interactive activities within the lesson as well as preparing and tasting vegetables as they practice and apply some of the techniques. This lesson also incorporates the vocabulary tool Quizlet which helps students learn their terms in an interactive way. Students actually ask me to use Quizlet on a regular basis to learn and assess terms.

Living in Poverty Lesson & Activities

by K.Graybill • October 23, 2015 • 1 Comment

While listening to the news on the radio, it was announced that in Pennsylvania 1 in every 5 children lives below the poverty level. I’m sure this number varies from one state to the next but I thought it to be a rather scary statistic. This lesson and the included activities has students learning about poverty, what causes it, and an engaging simulation to see how easy it could be for some to live in poverty no matter how hard they try to avoid it.

Consumer Rights & Panera Bread

by K.Graybill • July 17, 2015 • 1 Comment

Panera Bread has taken a stand to raise the bar and become transparent in their new campaign to offer consumers the best nutritional quality possible. They even put their promise out there for the whole country to see in the form of a letter, ads and commercials. As I read the letter and watched the commercials, I was impressed with the measures they are taking and think it’s a great example of our consumer rights in action. That’s why I am using it as a realistic way to reinforce the consumer rights with my students, as well as include non-fiction reading and writing into my curriculum.

Project Brainstorm: Let us help you! This month’s topic is Stress

by M.Sandoval • January 23, 2015 • 0 Comments

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, TPT product, 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.

Social Media: Helpful or Harmful?

by K.Graybill • January 16, 2015 • 5 Comments

What do sharpie marker designs on fabric swatches and social media posts have in common? Can your social media profiles impact your future employment? This was an object lesson activity and question I posed to my new Careers class talking about employment and interviews. As with many topics, there are always two sides, positives and negatives, and this topic was no different. Needless to say it led to some very interesting discussion. This lesson explores both sides of the topic in more detail, challenging students to explore and evaluate their own social media activity and how it might potentially impact their future opportunities.

Lesson Ideas: Consequences of Teenage Intimacy

by M.Sandoval • January 2, 2015 • 3 Comments

As the result of last month’s “Project Brainstorm” activity, Cheryl, a veteran Family and Consumer Science Teacher from Ohio submitted a whole bunch of activities and resources that she uses with her students. We thought they deserve special attention, so take a look and see if there are any ideas you might want to use with your students.

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