Tag: Middle School

What Children Need Silhouettes

What do children need physically, intellectually, emotionally and socially in order to grow and develop? Students brainstorm ideas and share their knowledge of children’s needs to raise awareness and show others the responsibilities of parents and caregivers as they create their own “What Children Need Silhouettes”.

Kitchen Hazards Flipgrid Style

Before I even think about letting my students into the kitchens to cook, I want to be sure they have a good working knowledge of the do’s and don’ts associated with kitchen safety. Kitchen Hazards Flipgrid Style is just one of the activities I use to convey and reinforce that concept. There are a lot of things I like about this activity. First, it’s mostly student-directed, secondly, it uses technology and third, it involves a variety of the 4 C’s: collaboration, communication, creativity and critical thinking.

A Culinary Introduction: My Slice of the Pie

Most teachers spend a few days at the beginning of the new school year doing activities that help them get to know their students better. These types of activities help teachers learn more about their students and also begin to help establish a positive teacher-student rapport. A Culinary Introduction: “My Slice of the Pie” is an engaging food themed activity shared by Sherwood High School’s ProStart teacher Lisa Gilbert of Maryland. Read on to learn more…

Grading Kitchen Lab Performance

Grading cooking labs is challenging mostly because you can’t see everything all at the same time, never mind write it down. I see many requests for lab evaluations. Here is what I could find that other teachers around the country use. Some are better than others. There are at least enough ideas to get you started in creating your own lab grading method.

Empathy Lesson

Do you have students that find it difficult to put themselves in another’s shoes and see things from someone else’s perspective? Have they ever judged someone without really getting to know them? My guess is you have; we all have! This lesson explores empathy as students practice applying empathy skills in order to strengthen their emotional intelligence which will help them as they move forward in life.

Teaching About Fashion Trends

It’s interesting to watch the trends in fashion change as new ideas emerge and old favorites get an update! Like history, fashion is bound to repeat itself and what’s old will become “new” again to a new generation! If you teach a course on fashion, you no doubt incorporate a lesson or unit on fashion trends. Read on to get an update on activities for teaching an old favorite!

Cooking Show BINGO

My students love cooking shows (especially the competitive ones) and so do I!  With that being said,  I wanted to be able to use them in an interactive way, not just with questions that had to be written out and answered.  I wanted to be able to engage my students and have some educational fun at the same time. A former student of mine, who just happens to be a computer genius and good friend of my son, designed and gifted me with this computer generated Cooking Show BINGO board game. This Google Sheets program has the capability of creating different board versions at the click of some keys so it saves having to manually recreate and reproduce different boards for your students!  How cool is that? Read on to learn more about how you can create these for your classroom use.

Did You Know?… Versatile Poster Activity

Ever need an activity that is easy to do, requires little prep and is totally adaptable to any class?  The activity I’m sharing in this post is one of those and is super easy to leave with a sub if you know you’re going to be out.  How do I know this?  Because I used it in two different classes on different days and with different subs and the student outcomes were no less than impressive!  The format is basically the same, you just have to change out your topic, hence the versatility!

Nessie: Hand-Sewing Infant Toy

Enrichment means to improve something…in this case the “something” was basic sewing skills (and fine motor skills). This year I chose to do a hand-sewing enrichment activity that was an extension of the rattle lesson in the infant unit.  Students worked on their small motor skills while creating and hand-sewing an infant toy or rattle which was affectionately named Nessie.  Please note, this project could easily be adapted to machine sewing if you have sewing machines in your classroom.

Towering Block ZONK Review Game

There’s an App in the iTunes store called the “Zonk Review Game”. It looked like a fun, interactive game. Unfortunately, there was a small fee to purchase which made it a “no go” for me as my school district doesn’t pay for Apps. I started asking myself how I could adapt this game using games I already had…and guess what? I figured out that I could use my towering block games as a substitute for the digital game. The beauty of this adaptation is that it’s still interactive, still competitive and easy to create and use. And if that wasn’t enough…this activity gets bonus points because I can reuse it over and over again in any content area. Read on to find out how you too can adapt and create this game for your own classroom review games.