December is a hectic time for most families making it even more difficult to spend quality time together. This 30 Days of Holiday Fun Project is a great project to help promote family bonding when schedules are busy and harried! Add diversity by incorporating many different holidays. Read on to learn more…
It was so much fun collaborating with Darci Friberg, a Missouri FCS teacher, on this NEAT=NON-EXERCISE ACTIVITY THERMOGENESIS lesson! I can’t encourage peer collaboration enough as each person brings so much to the table in the way of ideas and perspectives! I truly believe that we are better together. This lesson would be a great addition to a Food & Nutrition class, Health & Wellness class or even as part of a FCS Comprehensive class as it’s a topic we can all relate to even if you’ve never heard of it! Keep reading to learn more about this concept and let me know if you want to collaborate!
When teaching about safety in child development, it’s important to discuss mystery substances that may or may not be toxic, but look like a variety of possibilities. The Child Safety: Mystery Powder Identification is a quick little activity where students observe substances via pictures and try to identify the substance. Not as easy as you might think! Read on to see how this works…
After noticing continuous requests for lab suggestions that are doable in 43 minute class periods, I’ve decided to do a recurring series, featuring recipes that can
be completed from beginning to end in a 43 minute time frame. In some cases, longer recipes will broken into two day labs. In addition, I will include my pre-lab review questions that pertain specifically to the recipe. This helps to ensure that students are reading the recipe. It also allows me time to show any videos that may demonstrate the product or specific techniques. So, without further ado, I present the 43 Minute Lab Series: Puppy Chow!
This past spring, I put a post on Facebook as to how I could help teachers and one of the responses I received was to add more lessons to the Off to College Series. The
wish has been granted! This Off to College Series: STRESS lesson explores the concept of stress as it relates to first year college students. However, even if you aren’t teaching it from this perspective, there are a lot of engaging activities that can be used or adapted for other lessons about stress!
My students would always tell me that bacon makes everything better and I agree! There’s just something about bacon that amps up the flavor of
whatever it is paired with! I created this Bacon Lesson & Labs to help students learn more about bacon; where it comes from, cooking techniques, seasonings and even some fun, tasty labs!
It may be difficult for students to know that dressing for an interview may look different than workplace attire, with the prevalence of casual dress. First
Impressions: Job Interview Attire is a hyperdoc that explores the concept of “first impressions” as well as what job interview attire looks like for men and women. This self-directed assignment also includes an engaging, creative, realistic assignment for students to explore the costs of curating interview attire at various budget points. Continue reading to learn more!
Garnishing is defined as embellishing something. In this project, it pertains to food! In this project: Garnishing: Student Led Demonstration, students compile
the information on garnishing a specific food in a presentation and teach and/or demo the technique that can be used with the class! This project can then be shared with students via Google Classroom, keeping entire presentations together. Since students orally share, they can be graded as presented, making life easier at the end of the day!
One way to get students talking is to throw out a contentious topic because there are bound to be differing views! I’ve taken some topics that I feel fit this category
for both food and child development/parenting classes. FCS HOT Topics: Good Idea or Bad Idea has students looking at each topic and researching in more detail the good and bad components of it before sharing with the class. Not only is this an engaging assignment because it includes collaboration, communication and critical thinking, but it could be done weekly or quarterly and is tied to a writing assessment for those of you who need to include writing as part of your curriculum. The lists below obviously do not include every topic, but if you have a great topic that you believe should be included, please let me know by adding it to the comments.
If you teach about healthy relationships and are need of an engaging assignment, check out this Healthy Heart Visual. In this project, students get a tech break
as they create a hands-on visual representing characteristics needed for a healthy relationship. This semi-old fashioned project has them critically thinking about the meaning behind their selections as they construct and explain their visuals.
