Tag: High School

Use This, Not That…Healthy Substitutions

A close family friend was recently diagnosed with some serious health problems and was encouraged to change his diet. He came to me looking for some suggestions on how he could adapt some of the recipes he already liked and was using. After researching, I realized there are a lot of healthy substitutions to be made with very common ingredients. This made me think that this knowledge could be useful for my students as well since it’s highly possible that they might need to use this information in the future for themselves or their own families.

Infant Development: Vision

Students are always amazed when I explain to them that infants are born very nearsighted. Normal vision is 20/20 but aBlack.and.White baby is born with 20/200 and 20/400 vision. Over the course of the first year a baby’s vision will improve and they will eventually see things the way everyone else does. This lesson has students independently exploring how sight develops in infants, the role caregivers can play to help stimulate it and finally, culminates with a mobile project fit for an infant!

Project Brainstrom: Let us help you! This month’s topic is Teen Pregnancy

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, 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. Check back often as this page will be updated as resources come in.

Promoting Science Activities with Young Children

Recently I had a student who was hired to babysit young elementary aged children ask me for suggestions of activities she could do with children. She wanted something that was fun, engaging, and would pique their curiosity. We talked about a lot of options that included arts, crafts, cooking and games. Finally after further discussion and investigation, I suggested science related activities that revolved around crafts.

Breastfeeding Lesson Plan

There is nothing like teaching a lesson on most child birth related topics when you’ve never experienced it yourself. Awkward, fish out of water type experience. To make matters worse, I had about six pregnant girls and some teen dads starring back at me. I felt like every question made me blush. No matter how much knowledge I had, teenagers have an innate ability to ask just the right questions to make you squirm. However, since I finally joined the “mommy club” last year, I now can confidently share a lesson on breast feeding without feeling like a sham. Enjoy!

Project Brainstorm: Help us Help You! This Month’s Subject: Child Abuse

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, 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.

Childhood Obesity…The Rest of the Story Activity

Critical thinking and problem solving skills are definitely needed for today’s teens to prepare for the real world and life The rest of the storyon their own or with their future families. What better way to prepare them than to provide them with a real life scenario that needs to be solved. In this activity students are introduced to a problem and must work together as a group to figure out and creatively write and present the “rest of the story”,as the late Paul Harvey would say on his radio broadcasts. The beauty of this activity is that you can create a scenario that needs solved using any crisis type topic. I used childhood obesity, but you can use other important topics such as bullying, eating disorders, teen pregnancy, financial debt, finding quality day care, divorce, dating violence, aging and more. So let the scenarios begin!

Play: The Serious Work of the Child

Adults work hard to find time to play while play comes naturally to children. Through play children learn to function asPlay- unique individuals and discover what is in the world around them. Play is often considered “children’s work” because it’s what they do all day. As children play, they interact with objects in their world. They also respond to the actions of others. Doing and thinking become related, and even though children may not be aware, learning is taking place. These lessons and activities have students investigating more about the value and importance of play in a child’s development.

Consumer Promotions Lesson

If you’re like me you’ve been at the cash register ready to check out when the clerk tells you about some new rewards card or store credit card offer that may sound appealing. To make matters worse you may have rewards credit cards that beg you to use them to earn points towards your next airfare, or cash back. You may have thrown up your hands and declared I’ll take no special offers or you may be one to take most special offers. How do you navigate in the world full of offers for EVERYTHING? Which deal is the best? This lesson gives students an opportunity to look at specific scenarios with REAL companies’ offers and do the math.

Infant Development: Reflexes

Reflex actions are part of Jean Piaget’s Sensorimotor period. Babies are born with these instinctive, automatic Infant.Reflexesresponses; some permanent and some temporary. Reflexes are a way that infants learn about and react to the world. This is a lesson that has students learning more about infant reflexes, their stimuli and response using a jigsaw style presentation approach. Sometimes circumstances prevent you from doing an assignment a certain way so I’ve also included an alternate web activity version to gather the information just in case you need a sub-plan or a way for students to make up work. Choose the option that works for you!