Milk Cartons, Time, and Space

Piggy-backing on earlier posts about organizing your ingredients table and making egg cartons more manageable, here's a tip for milk: save a couple smaller containers. Having representatives from several kitchens waiting around for the gallon jug not only uses up precious time, it's a spill waiting to happen. I divide the milk up into the smaller sizes so that more people can use them AND spills are much less likely.

Note: make sure the kids know you are reusing older containers, so they don't squawk about the old dates.

Great One Minute Video for Foods/Nutrition Classes!

Last night the hubs treated me to a movie date ("Mockingjay!"), and one of the pre-film promos was this fantastic Weight Watchers commercial that would be perfect for Foods/Nutrition classes in so many ways! Where I would most likely use it would be at the beginning of the year, when we analyze the different reasons that we eat and the various influences on what we eat. However, it would be great to use when discussing snacking, emotional eating, eating habits, eating disorders... any number of things! Check it out here:

Note: if the embedded video doesn't work for you here, you can follow this link to view it on YouTube.

Healing Hands

This particular post falls under the category of “Taking Care of You.” This time of year our hands tend to get really torn up: between the extra cooking and baking of the holidays, making homemade gifts, and constantly washing our hands to fight the inevitable attack of teenage germs (not to mention all the usual hands-on work of our jobs AND the cold weather), probably none of us are worthy of hand model status at the moment.

Over the years I’ve tried all sorts of lotions, tried wearing gloves whenever possible, tried getting someone else to do all of the work (kidding… maybe…), but none of these ever seemed to make any impact.

Until I tried Aquaphor:

Note: I am not getting any money from Eucerin, sad to say; I just really think this is a helpful product. This stuff WORKS. It is an ointment, not a lotion (think Vaseline), so it has a different feel and a different consistency than lotion. However, I’ve found it absorbs almost as quickly as lotion, is non-greasy, and works so much better. Not only does it heal hands, but it also acts as a kind of sealant. When I remember to use it about half an hour or so before doing a lot of baking, at the end of the process my hands are significantly less dry than when I don’t. A container is more expensive than regular lotion, but I've found that it lasts much longer, so the money spent evens itself out.

So, if you too are a hand abuser fighting dry and chapped skin, give it a try – I saw a dramatic difference within my first week of using it, and I’m confident it will also make a difference for you!

And Eucerin, some coupons would be really nice!

Uncle Ben's Responds

Hey, Uncle Ben's actually responded to my objection from Friday!

Gah! Why We Need Home Ec, Part 3

That is NOT A DRY MEASURING CUP, Uncle Ben's!

You can't measure the importance of teaching them to cook? How about the importance of teaching them to measure? And shame on you Food Network Magazine for printing this!

Cheesecake in a Jar

This is a quick and easy lab that the kids just love, the serving size is perfect for class, and you get to use Mason jars!

Recipe:
4 oz cream cheese
1/2 c powdered sugar
4 oz Cool Whip
Fresh fruit, sliced or canned pie filling
Graham cracker crumbs*
Melted butter*

With mixer, beat cream cheese with powdered sugar. The fold in whipped cream. Layer in dessert glasses with crust mixture and fruit. Chill overnight.

*Note: We've made graham cracker crust before, so I make them calculate the ratio of crumbs to butter and come up with the amount they'll need for the three or four people in their groups. Math, muahahahaaaa...

Aren't they adorable?

Yum!

This lab can fit in to your curriculum in several places, and is one that doesn't take much time. The kids liked having their own individual dessert to eat, there were no leftovers (and thus no waste), and several have since used a variation of this for party treats!

The jars I picked up at WalMart, and to their disappointment the kids did not get to keep them. With my emphasis last year on experimenting with individual serving sizes for labs to reduce waste - and budget-stretching - I kept them for future single-serving projects.

Hint: keep the box flat that the jars come in to store them in your cabinets. You don't want to have to go pulling out 20 some jars every time you need them, as opposed to two flats!

Dumb Choices When Teaching Sex Ed

Well, since I brought up the topic of sex ed yesterday and discussed one of my recipes for success, today I'll share one of my biggest fails. I'll start by saying as many times as I've been through these units, I've actually never had any trouble with immaturity, inappropriateness, etc - I think this is primarily because kids don't want other kids to think that they are immature. As such, these particular class sessions tend to be more civilized and mature than most.

I've always had the policy that you can ask me anything - after all, if they don't ask me, they're probably going to ask their friends who actually know even less than they do. You open yourself up to all sorts of crazy things, but I'm not the type to become flustered by anything they have to say or ask.

There are, however, times when on the inside I'm thinking "please oh please oh please don't let anyone have overheard that" and "why oh why oh why did I open this can of worms." This used to be complicated by the fact that for three of my years teaching I had constant adult traffic coming in and out of my room, because kid you not the office to the Business Manager, Director of Building and Grounds, and Director of Transportation was accessible only by walking through my classroom. Which meant a constant parade of administrators, bus drivers, accountants, school board members, parents, etc were strolling through the room at any time.

So here's my story. We are beginning to learn about conception (for a great ice breaker, see yesterday's post), so we begin by going over the basics of anatomy, both male and female. We get to the point where we learn that women are born with all of the eggs that they are ever going to have, but men are constantly producing sperm. No matter how I set this up, without fail a conversation ensues on what happens when that sperm begins to build up. It is unavoidable.

And this particular year, for no real reason that I can think of now, I decided on the fly to try to avoid the m-word, and simply stated "Sexual activity does not have to involve another person."

The SECOND that phrase was out of my mouth I knew EXACTLY what was going to happen.

Immediately after I said that, a boy asked "So what, like a pig or something?" And chaos erupted.

"EWWWW!" "Who would do that?!" "Whaaaaaat???!!!" and then the inevitable "Mrs. C, do people really do that?"

Great. This is exactly what I wanted to discuss today. So I come back with yes, there are some people, it's called such and such, and by the way it's illegal.

"Why is it illegal? You own the pig!" And then a kid who I swear has never in his life written a paragraph that made any sense came back with the admittedly clever turn of phrase "Yeah, how come you can make your pig into pork but you can't pork your pig?"

Inside my head: make it stop, make it stop, make it stop... And then a girl chimes in "Wait, can you get the pig pregnant?"

And now I'm thinking REALLY? And I make a statement about DNA compatibility, etc, and how no, humans cannot get pigs pregnant.

And then comes my next mistake, which is one of automaticity: any time you say something to the effect of "no, you can't get pregnant from..." "you have a lower risk of pregnancy when..." etc, you automatically follow it up with something to the effect of "but that does not protect you from diseases." It's a good practice to always remind them that pregnancy is not the only risk associated with sexual activity. And so I made that statement.

And a boy SHOUTS out "YOU MEAN THAT IF I HAVE SEX WITH A PIG I CAN GET PIG HERPES????!!!!!!!"

At that precise moment a school board member was about three steps inside the room. He stopped dead in his tracks, raised his hands, and with a horrified look on his face pulled a 180 and made his escape. He did not come back. Ever.

And I was left to answer the question about pig herpes. Which went something like this:

"I don't really know enough about pigs to know if they actually carry the herpes virus, but obviously the risk of some kind of infection increases with this kind of activity. Leave the pigs - and all other animals - alone. If the pressure is getting to you, find a private space, lock the door, and fly solo."

To which they all nodded their heads in agreement that yes, that did seem like the more logical way to go about things.

And a girl said to me "I bet you wish you had just said that to begin with."

Amen, sister.

A Sex (Education) Trick

Risque title today, eh? So one of the joys of being a FACS teacher is the sex ed component that accompanies so many of your units, particularly in Child Development when you really can't skip over that whole "How are babies made" question.

One of the challenging things about handling this subject matter is that you've got kids all the way across the comfort spectrum: some will have no problem publicly asking the most graphic questions, some wish only to curl up under their desks and die. Most are somewhere in between.

Because of this, it's really crucial to work to establish an environment in which nobody is spending a full 52 minutes desperately pleading with God for a bear to walk into the classroom and eat them so that they can escape this discussion. So naturally you're not going to jump straight into "When a mommy and a daddy love each other very much...", but instead you're going to take some time to create that more comfortable climate first. Even with that, you're going to need some boosters here and there to keep things light and break the tension when necessary.

Here's one of my favorites.

For background, I use guided (sometimes called "skeleton") notes for my classes - they're already formatted and have most of what they need, but they have to follow along and fill in the blanks as we go. It's enough to keep them paying attention and on task, but not so much that they're focusing only on copying to the exclusion of listening (or that their hands cramp up and they begin crying carpal tunnel).

When we begin our discussion of conception, I make no assumptions. We start with the basics - the essentials of female and male reproductive anatomy. As such, it's obviously necessary to work with some diagrams (NOT pictures, diagrams). When I have the female anatomy on the board - and their note sheets - and we go over the different structures, I've never had any issues at all, they take it stride, almost ho hum. As soon as we flip to the male anatomy, that changes - you just can't project a penis onto the board (again, a diagram people!) without the room immediately becoming charged (and you can really see it in the less comfortable kids' faces - "ohmygodtheresapenisupthereitsapenisicantdothis WHERE IS THAT BEAR, GOD????"). Additionally, you have your less mature kids who are desperately, desperately trying not to giggle because they don't want anyone else to think they are immature. And of course everyone else is aware that things suddenly got weird and now everyone's a bit on edge.

So here's my built-in way to diffuse this inevitable event. For about seven or eight blanks in a row, they have to write in the same word over and over: sperm. By about the third of fourth one they begin to catch on, and by the sixth time they're writing "sperm" everyone is laughing out loud, the tension has disappeared, and "sperm" is now a meaningless word because they've looked at it so much and we can now move on.

Seriously, works like a charm, every time.

Story Time, Part 3

My next story time idea was very specific, but had absolutely HILARIOUS results!

We read this book:

Synopsis - a brother and sister lament that no matter what story they share, their grandfather always remarks "Could Be Worse!" Grandpa, having overheard them, then tells them a fantastic tale of adventure and danger... to which they respond... well, I'm sure you can guess!

After reading this, I gave them a template with two large rectangles, then asked them to create their own "Could Be Worse!" scenario. The results were hilarious (and revealed some truly demented minds!). I again scanned them to use for story time the next day; I divided their stories onto different slides, so that the class could guess what would happen next before seeing it (modeling prediction as a reading strategy, anyone?). Here they are:

Boy did the kids love this one! In fact, by request I showed their "Could Be Worse" stories again at the end of the school year a few months later.

While super fun and entertaining, there were of course many real lessons learned:

• discussion of the moral of the story
• using prediction as a reading strategy
• making text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world connections
• discussions of how to utilize all of these when reading to little ones!

And of course, more memories made!

Story Time: Part 2

In Part 1 I mentioned that I would share activities that I incorporated into my Child Development class along with "Story Time" - here's the first!

On back-to-back days, I read the following books:

 

The first is exactly what you would think: an alphabet book of NASCAR terms. The second, well, it's obviously not a real children's book. Great opportunity to teach about both satire and using good judgement when choosing reading material for young children! Also, just plain hilarious for both teacher and students alike - definitely a memorable class moment!

Reading these in succession naturally leads to a discussion of why so many books for kids have an alphabet theme, wherein we review the importance of letter awareness and learning letter sounds. And then, I have them write their own mini-alphabet stories.

I gave them a blank template with four squares, and the following conditions:

• Choose any four letters in a row of the alphabet
• Choose a theme
• Use words and pictures in each frame to create a mini-alphabet "book"

Here is a sampling of the results:

Several students chose a fruit/veggie/food theme.

A few chose to use names.

Animals were very popular.

And a couple of them really developed their themes.

After I collected them I created a slideshow from them, which became their "story" for the third day (note: before showing I of course went over guidelines for commenting on and responding to other students' stories - particularly the drawings and the spelling). For each we discussed what children could learn from these little stories, what age group each might be appropriate, and then we talked about how to help kids create their own short alphabet stories. 

And naturally the students LOVED having their stories projected on the board. Even for them I cropped the names out so that they could remain anonymous if they wished, but almost every single one was anxious to claim credit for their creation - pretty cute how much pride they took in something like this!

Very successful lesson, I would definitely do this one again. And if nothing else, you should definitely read "K is for Knifeball!"