Tag: Holidays

30 Days of Holiday Fun Project

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…

Día de Muertos Activities

Looking to add a little cultural diversity into your classes? The Día de Muertos Activities will help you plan for November 1st. The activities presented represent a variety of different ways to introduce and teach about this special day using both technology and hands-on methods. Choose what will work best for your students and your courses!

Festive Table Decor Project

Doing so much of my job virtually makes me crave working with my hands, creatively, in my down time (what little of it there is)! Not only do I get to work with my hands to make something creative, meaningful, useful and/or beautiful, but I get a much needed reprieve from screens…for which my eyes thank me! This “Festive Table Decor Project” is one that students can personalize to make whatever they want, around the theme of the assignment, using materials they have on hand. In addition, I want my students to feel connected to what they create and have a greater understanding of what’s involved in DIY projects! Read on to learn more and let your students release their pent up creativity!

Roll an Ugly Sweater with the Elements of Design

What started out as a crazy contest for holiday parties, has evolved into a huge seasonal highlight! So, why not incorporate a little “ugly sweater” into your classroom fun? Students are always a little hyper, energetic (aka bouncing off the walls) and enthusiastic this time of year anyway, so why not encourage them to put those energies into creating an “ugly sweater”? The thing is, this activity is actually meant to be somewhat educational, incorporating the elements of design. However, I’ve taken a few creative liberties with them in order to stay consistent with the theme and the time of the year! So, give it a try and if you have any suggestions to make it better, please let me know in the comments below.

Halloween in the FACS Classroom

You may ask yourself “How does Halloween fit into the FACS classroom?”, but actually there are a variety of ways and areas you can incorporate this event or holiday into your classes. If you have any additional ideas after perusing the list below, please share via the “Be A Part” tab above or the comment section below. Happy Halloween!

Gifts from the Hands

Some of the most cherished gifts our family has received over the years have been made by the hands of the people we love. In fact we look forward to those gifts every year as they’ve kind of become a tradition. Sometimes those gifts made with love were born out of necessity due to limited resources available to go out and purchase store bought gifts, but many times they were made and given out of love for the recipient(s) of the gift. For example, many years ago, very close friends of ours began making us a delicious candy-like treat that can only be described as “Christmas Crack” because once you start eating it, you can’t stop! We love the candy and our friends and look forward to that gift every year! After all, how can you look at, use or consume that wonderful gift without thinking fond thoughts of the talented person/people who took the time to make it for YOU! Why not teach your students how they can use their talents, time and resources to make gifts of love to give to those in their lives that they cherish most during this Christmas and Holiday season?

Easter Edible Rice Krispie Scenes

Have some fun with Rice Krispie treats this Easter by using their mold-able properties to create an Easter scene. Create religious scenes or Easter bunny, spring theme scenes. Let your imagination roll.

Thanksgiving Ideas for your Classroom

The holiday season can be stressful for us as the students get riled up in anticipation of school break, classes get shorter making it hard to cram our lessons into half days, and our personal lives get busy. I personally view holidays as a way to celebrate with students and take some of the pressure off of the normal academia pacing that at this time of the semester can leave us all exhausted. Here are a few holiday ideas to either help your department raise money, fit in some extra holiday excitement, or comply with a half day schedule.

Elements and Principles of Design The Gingerbread Way

Teaching the elements and principles of design gets monotonous. There are always the traditional standbys like having students find a magazine picture and label the elements and principles, but I was looking for something more creative. With the holiday season in full swing I wanted to make a gingerbread house for a friend so I decided to make the inside of a gingerbread house using the elements and principles of design. Not into the whole gingerbread thing? The same idea can be used to create a diorama out of a shoe box and it will save you the time baking.