A Little Fun with Pop Quizzes

Sometimes you gotta check in to see what the kids are getting and what needs some work, which in fancy lingo is referred to as formative assessment. I do this in a variety of ways, but sometimes a pop quiz is the way to go. However, I don't want the kids to get so freaked out that test anxiety confounds the results and I don't know if they actually don't know what I want them to know, or if they couldn't produce what they know because of nerves and therefore look like they don't know what they know.

Did you have to read that twice?

Point being I try to make things like this as anxiety-free as I can. One thing that's fun to do is give a pop quiz in the form of a card. Below is an example of a vitamin pop quiz I gave. I made little quiz-cards, placed them in envelopes, sealed them with veggie stickers (unnecessary but added to the fun! Thank you Target dollar bins), then popped them into their folders with a "Do Not Open" note written on them.

Was it more work than just handing out a quiz the old-fashioned way? Yes. Was it a little cutesy? Yes. Did the kids like it? Yes. Were they freaked out about taking a quiz? No.

Would I have done this for multiple large classes? Heck no, unless I had student helpers - this would be a great thing for student helpers to do, by the way. But, for just a couple of classes, it was totally worth it, and made learning about vitamins just a touch more fun. 

p.s. Want more vitamin fun? Check out my completely ridiculous yet useful Vitamin Poem!

Anonymous Donors

Hi everyone!

If you have donated and not yet received your bundle... did you donate anonymously? Some of you have chosen to remain anonymous - perfectly fine - and then contacted me separately with directions for where to email your goodies. That has been working really well! But for those of you who haven't contacted me, remember, as I stated in the directions, if you donate anonymously they don't give me ANY of your info, including your email address!

If you are an anonymous donor, PLEASE send me a message at facsclassroomideas@gmail.com so I can send your resources out to you!

Thank you again to all who have given to the Leukemia and Lymphoma society!

THANK YOU!!!

AMAZING! Thanks to all of you wonderful FACS teachers who have donated to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, yesterday morning I hit my goal after less than 5 1/2 days! You guys rock!

I will continue to keep the special deal open, so if you have any teachers you could pass it on to please do - every single dollar makes a difference in the battle against blood cancers! 

For those of you have already donated and received the bundle, please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions as you begin to stroll through the files. I do hope that they will be of help to you and that your students will benefit.

Thank you again to all who have joined the cause, and to those who spread the word!

p.s. We're now up to 42 states and 3 Canadian provinces that have been donated from - make sure you check out the map!

2017 Map

2016 Map

2015 Map

Google My Maps/Google Maps Gallery

A few people emailed me about the map I put up on yesterday's post, so I thought I'd share a little bit about it. Google My Maps allows you to create your own maps, then either share the link or embed the map within your website. Any time you make a change, it will automatically update wherever it is embedded/linked. For example, I will continue to add the cities of the teachers who donate to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through my fundraiser, and it will update the map on yesterday's post every time. You can even access and edit your maps right through your Google Drive! This is a great tool to use to create resources for your classes, or for your students to create maps, too!

Another great related resource is Google Maps Gallery, which is a huge repository of maps created by others, individuals and institutions alike. There are maps related to pretty much any topic you can think of and find a related map, which you can then link to or embed. A few samples (click on the icon next to the map title for a description and to navigate the maps):

So yes, really, just about any topic you could think of!

Using Social Media for Good!

Social media is definitely like The Force - it contains enormous potential for good, but also has the Dark Side. As teachers we all know how everything from Facebook to Snapchat can used for evil  (oh, sophomore girls... sigh...), which makes us wary of its power.

But then, something good happens! This weekend I started a fundraiser offering a huge bundle of FACS resources in exchange for a $25 donation to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and just look at all of the cities FACS teachers have donated from so far! Thank you so much to all of you!!!

The fundraiser is of course still open, and I will continue to update this map - check back here to see the new locations added. Better yet, consider taking advantage of the special deal and have your own town added to the map! Not only will you gain an oodle of new classroom resources (there is an itemized list included with the details you can view before committing), but you will also be joining the cause of fighting blood cancers!

Special Deal - Over 100 Resources!

As promised, here is the special deal I alluded to earlier in the week!

This deal includes:

• 24 weekly bell work sheets
• 39 skeleton note forms with corresponding PPTs
• ~50 resources for various activities
• 24 recipes, most in lab plan format, many with self-evaluation forms and video demonstrations
• 3 sets of lab task cards
• 35 video links used regularly in class
• an oodle of additional resources not easily categorized
• everything you see in my TPT store (which is not a ton, but a decent amount)
• Please click here to see a much more detailed list of the items here

On TPT this would cost you a small fortune. For the next few weeks all of this can be yours for... $25. 

Nope, not a typo! Why? To fight cancer!
Note: short link in image is outdated; visit bit.ly/CAP4TNT19  for this year's fundraiser! 

I will be running in the Chicago Marathon this fall, and I am running with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training! This is a cause very important to our family, as my husband lost his mother to multiple myeloma when he was still in high school. 

What does this have to do with FACS resources? Here's how to redeem the special offered above:

1. Visit my fundraising page at bit.ly/CAP4TNT19 and make a $25 dollar donation. 
2. Use the word "FACS" somewhere within the message box.
3. Receive the full bundle within 48 hours! 

That's it! The only caveat is that if you select the option to remain anonymous, I won't receive your email address to send you your goodies. You can still keep your name from being visible on the fundraising page by selecting this option:

Benefits for me:

• You will be helping me to reach my fundraising goal!
• 100% of your donation will go to Team in Training!

Benefits for you:

• Lots of great resources!
• You'll receive a receipt that you can use for a charitable tax deduction (it won't count toward the paltry educator expenses limit!)!
• You will be fighting cancer!

Benefits for patients and their families:

• Donations to blood cancer research means more lives saved!

Visit bit.ly/CAP4TNT19 today, and thank you so much for helping in the fight against blood cancer!

Prenatal Timeline Activity

In keeping with my theme of short group activities (can two days be a theme?), here's another one that's been really successful.

Before we dive into prenatal development, I like to do a little formative assessment to get an idea of what they already know, and what they think they know, and what they have so very, very wrong. For this activity, I divide them into groups and send them back to the kitchens (as I've mentioned before, this gives them lots of counter space, and gets them up and moving). Then each group is given a set of cards (color-coded to match their kitchens, of course!) that contain week numbers and a description of something that happens during the prenatal period. I ask them to work together to take their best shot at matching up the week with the correct description. (These really aren't the best pictures, but it gives you a little something to visualize.)

I then walk around so I can hear them discussing each item and where they think it belongs along the timeline and why. I get so much information about their prior knowledge, their thinking process, their communication skills... it's really a fantastic assessment! In addition to those benefits, it gives me a really clear idea about what misconceptions I need to work on clearing up as we go through the unit (and believe me, there are A LOT - but if you teach child development, you already know that!).

By the way, if you don't have white boards for group work, you absolutely must get some. The kids love them and they are fantastic for quick group work and all sorts of spontaneous activities. Love them!

p.s. Tomorrow's the big day for releasing oodles of materials to share!

Play-Doh, Child Development, and Take-Out Boxes

So over a year ago I posted about using brightly colored take-out boxes (available at your local craft store) for project supplies, and promised to write about how we used the Play-Doh I stored in them in a later post. Well, here's the later post!

To review, the take-out boxes are not only a fun storage container, but being sealed and opaque they are also great for "secret" supplies and surprise projects. One thing that many students struggle with is understanding the differences between physical, intellectual, social, and emotional development (in particular they have a hard time teasing out social and emotional). In fairness, they are all of course interrelated, but I need them to understand each as a stand-alone as well. Because they have such trouble, my challenge is to take these abstract concepts and make them as concrete as possible, so I thought "Why not have them make physical representations of each?"

I divided the class into groups, then sent them back to the kitchens so they would have lots of counter space to work with (and also to get them physically moving around, get those brain juices flowing!). Each kitchen was given a take-out box (in the color that matched their kitchen, of course), which they were delighted to find contained Play-Doh! I explained that even though they were in groups they would each be making their own creations (haha to those who thought they could just watch! Boy, lots of exclamation points in this paragraph!). We quickly reviewed the different areas of development, and then I said "Okay, everyone create something with your Play-Doh related to physical development." And off they went! We did a few rounds each of physical, intellectual, social, and emotional. Check out some of their ideas:

I walked around as they worked, and asked them to explain what it was they produced and how it was related to that area of development. This was an important component because:

1. not all of them were great Play-Doh artists and I'm not always the best mystery solver
2. some of the creations could be applied to multiple categories so I wanted to hear their reasoning for their choice
3. it forced them to not only think about what they were making but how they could explain what they were making to someone else
4. viewing others' creations and listening to others' explanations deepened their understanding of the concepts and helped them apply the concepts to a wider range of objects/ activities/ relationships/ etc

They learned, they started performing much better on other assignments/ assessments related to areas of development, and we all had fun. And, I got to use the awesome color-coded take-out boxes! Slam dunk!

Food for Thought: Bell Ringers

I do like using bell ringers - you know, those little writing prompts or activities at the beginning of class that get kids thinking about what they'll be doing today (while you're taking attendance and juggling 4 million other things); but it took me a while to find a system for them that I really liked.

I started out with the students writing them on notebook paper. This was useless. Either you have to collect a million pieces of paper a day, or they lose them. Even if you say "Keep the same paper all week; put it in your folder" or whatever, it's doubtful that will help. Then of course the paper itself is torn, crumpled, spilled on, chewed on, whatever.

So when I moved to binders, I placed a little packet of bell ringer sheets in with everyone's syllabus, etc:

This worked so much better! Clean, hole-punched paper that stayed in the rings. Beautiful.

Downsides: It wound up taking a good bit of room up in the binders. I was confined to boring lines and three sentence responses. I had to keep track of how many should be recorded every time I graded. I had to keep a list of the prompts handy for weeks after they'd been used. 

Then I moved to folders, and decided I wanted a weekly sheet that they would keep in their folders. I would graded folders every week, and this sheet would be removed from their folders every week. And I didn't always want to be confined to boring lines and three sentence responses. So I came up with these:

Each week had a different little food icon at the top, different shapes throughout the page, and the variation allowed me a variety of prompts. I would give the students blank ones like the one above, add the prompts to the page and project one each day:

Love this system! I used them in every class, not just Foods (though I of course changed out the title of the class). It provides a lot of flexibility, and is fun to boot. Check out these happy guys:

I know, I know: you're now irresistibly drawn to these and are thinking "Man, I've gotta make some awesome bell ringer sheets like that." Awww shucks, thanks! But don't. I'll be putting over a semester's worth of these bad boys up along with a ton of other new stuff as part of a very special bargain by the end of the week. Stay tuned!

Update: Packets of these bell ringer sheets are available in my TPT store if you're interested.

Ah, Junior High Kids...

A souvenir from my days of teaching junior high. This was an unprompted note:

My recollection is she was very sweet for about two days, then returned to her former ways. I'll always have those two days... and the memory of this note.