Category: Life Skills

Family and Consumer Science Apps

We have come to a critical place as educators–to embrace technology or try to beat it down by forcing kids to keep it in their lockers or not bring it to school. While technology should not distract from learning it can enhance it if we let it. Here are some Apple App’s to aide in teaching Family Consumer Sciences.

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Fast Food Comparison

My students were aghast that the new Five Guy’s Burgers and Fries that opened up in town were selling 800 calorie hamburgers! Apparently one of them had done their research. I wanted to confirm this information for myself hoping it was only an exaggeration so I went to their website. Quite frankly I was surprised at what I found and thought surely not all restaurants were the same. My hunch was correct, not all restaurants and fast food places are the same some were much worse than an 800 calorie burger! Thus a new lesson was born.

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4-H: A FACS Friendly Youth Development Program

4-H is a youth development program funded by your state’s land grant college. It is run formally by cooperative extension agents, then parent club leaders & volunteers. Typically 4-H is associated with animals specifically raising & showing them. However, 4-H is so much more than animals. 4-H has been around for over 100 years and is based on the concept of projects.

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School Yard Gardens & The Slow Food In Schools Project

Save money and boost nutrition through a school yard garden, part of national trend to focus on eating local, whole foods. “Slow Food is an idea, a way of living and a way of eating. It is a global, grassroots movement with thousands of members around the world that links the pleasure of food with a commitment to community and the environment.”

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Perfect for Your Classroom: A Politically Neutral Novel about Teenage Pregnancy (sponsored post)

Every so often I will write a sponsored post. I allow companies who have products or services that I think would be helpful to you as readers advertise through a sponsored post.

The book, Butterflies in May, is a story about teen pregnancy that can be used in your classroom. Bancroft Publishing would like to give you complimentary copy to review.

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Character Resources

Books Good Ideas to Help Young People Develop Good Character: Ways to Teach the Six Pillars of Character The six pillars of character discussed in this book are Trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship. Articles Teaching Millennials More Effectively…

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Love is Like a Fairy Tale

So often our view of what love is comes from the stories we’ve read or watched as a youngster. Heck, even weddings these days are fairy tale themed. But is love like a fairy tale or are we merely setting our students up for “love failure” if fairy tales, Hollywood and television are the primary sources of their expectations. This lesson challenges students to reread romantic fairy tales with their relationship glasses on to see how the characters’ relationships would hold up in the real world and determining the realities of “happily ever after” for each story.

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Small Appliance Cooking Assignment

My life skills students actually came up with this lesson. This particular class happened to be a class full of guys and they convinced me that simple cooking skills were something that they should learn before they graduate. Of course they also loved to eat…thus the birth of this lesson–cooking with small appliances!

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Life Long Learning Book Report

This project is a part of a high school senior life skills class. I explain to the students that after high school it is really up to them to engage in learning on their own. No one is going to spoon feed them. One of the ways adults learn is by reading books on subjects that they need to work on or learn more about.

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Personal Finance Resources

“Many young people fail in the management of their first consumer credit experience, establish bad financial management habits, and stumble through their lives learning by trial and error” states the Jump$tart Coalition. From this reality many programs have emerged all with one goal- to financially educate our young people. On this post I tried to list many of the notable programs, games, and websites that provide resources for financial literacy.

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