The first week of school can be a bit chaotic until rosters are finalized! Because of this, many teachers wait to start actual course content until then and fill in with a variety of team building or get to know you types of activities. With the Invention Mash-Up, students can have fun being creative, collaborating and communicating as they design a new product! Read on to see what this is all about.
I know it’s only July, and it’s summer break, but I want to share a beginning of the year, Get to Know You Action Figure Activity with you. This activity will help you not only ease back into the school year, but help you get to know your students more quickly and give you an instant bulletin board to boot! It also is a fun way to use AI in a creative, meaningful way….check it out!
I’ve been in the FACS profession for a very long time and it seems to me that this “new” concept of Experiential Learning that I keep reading about has been something we’ve always done! We’ve always been about hands-on learning that focused on meaningful activities and putting theories into practice around real world and real life experiences! We’ve been developing students’ skills, critical thinking and preparing them for life from the get-go! So, if you’re not sure you are including experiential learning in your programs or courses, just take a look at the list below to see how you can do so or reaffirm that what you’ve been doing is a current pedagogical strategy and/or model.
Sometimes you need a generic project that can be used as an individual student assignment when class sizes are small or a group project when class sizes are large. This is where Project ABC for ANY Topic comes in! Regardless of the topic you are teaching, this activity can be used as a review of materials or as an assessment of materials in ANY course, with any topic! It even includes a version that can be turned into a bulletin board or wall display afterwards.
The Paper Towel Art & Child Development Mini-Lesson is a great little activity to use as a beginning of the year or end of the year when you need a little something to fill in those odd days! This is a hand-on activity that can be used with middle or high school students with connections to child development or it can be done with littles where the older students are helping and observing what is actually taking place developmentally. Either way it is a very engaging, fun activity to do with students of all ages!
After talking with Angela Koster-Sorenson about her interactive food safety activities at a recent conference in Minnesota, I was excited to feature her! In this Food Safety & Sanitation unit, students learn the need for proper safety and sanitation practices in food preparation, food service and food storage to prevent food contamination, bacterial growth and illness in a variety of ways. Read on to learn more.
When is the last time you received a thank you card…an actual card? So many people want to say thank you via an email or text. On the one hand, it’s great they are acknowledging the thought, words or actions that prompted it, but on the other, it’s so nice to receive that actual card, especially if they took the time to write it or better yet, make it! Cards of Kindness explores whether thank you notes still matter before students learn how to write a thank you note and then actually construct one from a variety of recyclable items!
Toddler Autonomy & The Parenting Toolbox focuses on ways parents can journey through this stage of development as toddlers try to gain independence. This lesson includes a variety of engaging activities for students and would be a great addition to any child development or parenting class!
I’m a huge fan of hands-on activities for a variety of reasons! One of my favorites involves hexagonal thinking blocks. Not only does it provide students with engagement, but it also allows them to communicate, collaborate and think critically when working with the blocks. If you’d like to give this a try, check out the Calories & Exercise Lesson below.
Messy play was not encouraged in our household when I was a child! However, when I had my own children, it occurred on a regular basis, for a variety of reasons! In this Child Development Dilemma: To Paint or Not to Paint?, students are researching the art medium of finger paints as it related to young children. So if you’re looking for an engaging, hands-on lesson with activities, be sure to check this one out!
