Category: Life Skills

Goals Make You Reach the Sky Activity & Bulletin Board

The winner of the February give away is this lesson from Jessica Uplinger, a Family Consumer Science teacher from Ohio. In her lesson, students learn how important goals are and learn to make their own.

Diaper Cost Analysis Project

What is the cheapest way to buy diapers? Do subscriptions to Amazon Prime or memberships to wholesale clubs really save you money on diapers? Why not do the math? This is a complex problem but easy enough to understand and develops student’s problem solving skills.

What is the best family cell phone plan? Problem Solving Lesson

Problem solving is one skill that has to be taught. If you think about it, we really want students who can problem solve, not memorize a whole bunch of facts or methods for doing something. This lesson happens to be about cell phone plans since it is a problem that students can easily understand yet is more complex so even our brightest students will be challenged in figuring it out.

Interactive Notebooks

Serina wrote in asking if I had any resources for family consumer science interactive notebooks. Unfortunately a typical google search doesn’t produce anything but interactive notebook materials for science, English, and history classes. However, Interactive Notebooks are a great fit for Family and Consumer Science classes!

“A Slice of Me” Lesson

The students will discover differences and similarities in each other, which contribute to making them unique through this creative lesson plan where students make a paper “pizza slice” that represents their interests, personality, hobbies, etc. This is a great ice breaking kind of lesson for students to get to know one another.

Who Should I Consider? Lesson Plan

Who should I consider is a Socratic class discussion on how students’ choices effect the different “circles” of people in their lives. This lesson is intended to develop students’ sense of empathy and their role in a community larger than…

Social Media & Consumerism

This lesson is primarily one that promotes awareness and critical thinking about advertising and the subtleties that can influence consumers like students through a medium they are all too familiar with. I think of this lesson like an informatory discussion with your child about how not every person they meet is a safe person. This lesson is about teaching caution by thinking & researching before jumping on every trend and by analyzing the company’s point of view and intentions so students can make smart, informed decisions about what they participate in online.

Emotional Equations Lesson

Emotional equations breaks down typical emotions into components much like a math equation. By learning emotional equations one can think about the ingredients fueling the emotion and make behavioral changes to change the emotion constructively.

Is Sam’s Club Worth It?: A Practical Analysis of Club Shopping

In adult life there are many practical questions that require problem solving skills and a little math. This lesson has students figure out the benefits and costs to joining a shopping club like Sam’s Club. Guide your students through a real life case study that requires lots of critical thinking, a little math and the chance to use Excel!