Category: Life Skills

RelationSHIP Graphic Organizer

Students need to have an idea of what makes a relationship healthy or unhealthy. In order to accomplish this, students spend time brainstorming on their own before joining forces as a class to complete the “RelationSHIP Graphic Organizer.” This is a very engaging class sharing activity before asking students to apply it as they analyze relationships to determine their healthfulness.

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.

Advertising Part II: Food Themed Sneaker Project

Thanks for checking back in for the Advertising Part II: Food Themed Sneaker Project. This project gave students an opportunity to build on their advertising knowledge and apply it in a fun and creative way. Afterall, who doesn’t love fun, food inspired footwear!

Advertising Lesson: Part I

One of the special topics I like to teach when time permits is a mini-unit on advertising. This Advertising Lesson: Part I is the lesson before the project. It introduces students to a variety of information they need to know about advertising before they can complete the project in a very interactive and hands-on way. The project will be shared next week as this post would be ginormous if I didn’t split it up. So, please check out both weeks to see the entire mini-unit and project.

Plotagon Credit Card Scenarios

Scenarios are great tools to engage students! However, sometimes you have a group of students who love to role play and perform skits and other times you have groups that are as quiet as church mice. When that happens let Plotagon Story, a free animation app, come to your rescue. Sharing below how I incorporated it into a Take Charge Today credit card activity titled “What Would You Do?” into Plotagon credit card scenarios.

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.

Idealistic, Realistic & Unrealistic Relationships

When I begin teaching my unit on dating, I always begin by looking at idealistic, realistic and unrealistic relationships! This activity is used as a springboard into other dating and relationship topics and always generates some interesting discussion! It’s low prep and you can pick and choose from the below examples or do them all! Either way you’re sure to get some lively student responses!

Convenience Foods & A Can Do Struggle Meal Challenge

“Convenience Foods & A Can Do Struggle Meal Challenge” was another lesson I shared with Missouri FACS teachers during their July conference. This challenge was a big hit with my students! As a teacher, I love to see my students in full collaboration mode as they create, plan and execute their ideas!

Staying Safe HyperDoc

Most colleges today have many safety features in place all over their campuses to put students (and their parents) at ease. However, students still need to be aware and think about what they can do to apply good safety practices as they participate in various college life and activities. This Staying Safe HyperDoc is great way to help them explore ways to be safe in a variety of situations. The beauty of this assignment is that it could easily serve as a flex learning activity for those days when school is cancelled, but school work must go on!

Families in Children’s Books

Many years ago Carol Erwin, of Nebraska, shared an activity with me that gave students the chance to analyze the work of the family. Students enjoy reading  about different families in children’s books as they complete a series of prompts. It’s important for children to see how families interact and be able to recognize and relate to different family structures, stages of the family life cycle, and family functions. So if you have access to a variety of children’s books about families or a local library, you may want to grab some books and check this lesson out.