Walls, Windows, & Doors

It is the end of another school year and the giant classroom is blank once again.

I've taken 99% of my posters down. My desk is empty. There is minimal furniture in the room (aside from tables and chairs). All of my belongings will be coming home with me this year. Yes, I am searching for a new opportunity - and hopefully it will be in the high school setting.

I never felt that this would be a permanent position. I honestly never wanted to teach middle school. After one year in a new district at a position I truly enjoyed, I was force-transferred to the middle school that I am currently at. 

I have learned a lot about myself as a teacher and I have grown in my lessons and abilities. But it certainly has not been easy. These have been the most difficult two years of my career. 

I am not looking forward to saying my final goodbyes, especially to the students who expect to see me next year and take MY classes again. I am waiting until this coming week to let them know. 

I am, of course, looking forward to summer. I am excited to spend more time with my family and to relax with friends. But as my Awesome Colleague told me, it is now my full-time job to secure a new job. And while that door is closing, this window will remain open. I will still be writing and sharing my wisdom and ideas here.

Well wishes to you all. I hope you have an amazing summer!

The Last Food Lab

Monday's food lab was the last food lab (or food experience). Among a laundry list of other reasons, no pun intended fellow FCS teachers, an empty budget was a small surprise. 

In truth, I had planned for 3 more labs thinking I would have time to get the paperwork through and enough in my budget to get the groceries. Nope. 

This was an extremely difficult lab (mentally) even though I did all the premeasuring. With a 45 minute time limit, this lab was still just ... Nope. 

Recipe

3tbsp butter

2 cups chicken, cubed into bite size pieces

1/2 cup Italian bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 375.

In a small bowl, melt 1 tbsp butter, pour into a baking dish. 

Melt remaining butter in a small bowl. 

Dip chicken pieces into melted butter then roll in bread crumbs. Place in buttered pan. 

Bake for 20 minutes. 

Notes for Next Time:

Provide less chicken.

Connections:

We connected our learning back to foodborne illnesses and practiced avoiding cross-contamination. 

Oh, and this happened. 

Perfect for future safety and sanitation lessons. 

Throwback Thursday

Student teaching 2007

(Just look at that dedication! Taking resources home. And how "tidy"!)

Food Lesson: Taste Testing

I have conducted several taste tests this year. It's something that I enjoy giving my students. It can be a quick and inexpensive lab that can be done instead of something extremely in depth. It helps broaden their tastes and experiences. It is also very entertaining to see students' reactions (good and bad).

Curriculum Connections

• Science: Anatomy and taste buds (taste bud and tongue map - controversy over if this is real).
• English: Adjectives

Procedures & Expectations
It is extremely important to go over procedures and expectations before tasting can begin. This happens every time I have a Taste Test Lab.

• Students are expected to not taste/eat anything until I give them the word. This is important because they need to visually compare and describe everything together.
• A good pre-lesson would be for students to make a poster of describing words that work for foods. Students could use this poster to reflect on. It would also make a good chart for an interactive notebook.
• Students are to create a chart that categorizes the comparisons to be made (visual description/texture, smell, mouth feel/texture, taste.
• When students need to distinguish between items, it's best to repackage and give non-descriptive labels (A, B, C, 1, 2, & 3)

Taste Tests

Here is a list of Taste Test Labs we have done this year so far.

• Chocolate - Identifying flavors
• Chips - Identifying flavors
• Cheese It's - Identifying flavor and distinguishing between reduced fat, whole grain, and regular
• Jelly Beans - Identifying flavors & comparing to real flavors.
• Cereal - Comparing national brands and store or generic brands
• Oreos - Weird and new flavors

DIRTy Food Lab

It's 4 am and my brain is excited. If I can get this out, maybe I can get back to sleep. 

My students have a food lab today - dirt cups. 

Here's the simple recipe from Kraft.com:

1 pkg. (3.9 oz.) Chocolate Instant Pudding

2 cups cold milk

1 tub (8 oz.) Whipped Topping, thawed

15 Oreo Cookies, finely crushed (about 1-1/4 cups), divided

10 Gummy worms

Beat pudding mix and milk in large bowl with whisk 2 min. Let stand 5 min. Stir in COOL WHIP and 1/2 cup cookie crumbs. Spoon into 10 paper or plastic cups; top with remaining cookie crumbs. Refrigerate 1 hour. Top with fruit snacks just before serving. 

This can go back to a taste test we had a few weeks ago where we tried several flavors of Oreos. I still cannot wrap my head around flavored Oreos. Anyway, we could question what flavors would be good or bad with this recipe and why. Or recreate the recipe with a new flavor of Oreo or pudding. Would it still be considered "dirt" and why/not? That's some higher order thinking right there! 

You know, there are a lot of connections to be made!

Science: Chemical and physical changes. Milk and pudding are the chemical change. The crushed Oreos are the physical change. And that one could also go back to digestion and the physical breakdown of foods through chewing. 

Social studies: we recently talked about how more people are growing their own fruits and vegetables and the impact it can make (organic vs non, economical, etc). Dirt cups can represent gardening! We can also go back to talking about the parts of the plant and which types of edible vegetables are found in the soil (roots and tubers). This would also be a great way the students can build an edible plant model that represents the parts of the plants we eat. 

One other connection - agriculture and back to gardening. I taught a lesson to underprivileged youth through an internship with the local county extension agency and 4-H program about gardening. The lesson was about how to successfully garden and what makes a great soil. We built an edible soil compound that represented all the different parts of a healthy soil that would foster plant growth. 

I can't remember the full list of ingredients but these are some of the items I remember using and what they represented. 

Pretzels - sticks

Gummy worms - worms 

Brown sugar - sand

Peanut butter - dead and decaying organisms *omit for allergies

Here are a few more resources. The only thing that makes the difference is that the following links talk about the layers of soil on a larger scale - which is more of a geology or earth science lesson. Our gardening soil is mixed up to encourage growth and contains other added materials. 

Edible Soil 1

Edible Soil 2

Edible Soil 3

List of questions posed to students:
Draw and label the layers of soil (this involves student research).
Crushing the cookies can be compared to what part of digestion?
What part of the recipe involves physical change?
What part involves chemical change?
What parts of the plant do we eat that is found under the soil? (give the two plant categories and an example from each)
What pudding/oreo flavors would be good to use?
Would it still be considered "dirt"? Why or why not?

Teacher Tip: Pre-Measuring

One of the first lessons I teach in the foods curriculum is how to measure ingredients and why measuring is important. The students then have one or two labs that include measuring. This year, I stopped the students' measuring and took the responsibility on. It is a bit more work for me, but I have a system down! I don't know why I haven't been doing this before. 

My reasoning for taking over measuring:

• Less mess
• Fewer students crowding me at the ingredients
• Less measuring supervision (take and go)
• More time for the students to actually cook and clean for their lab success!

My system:

• I'm early to arrive to work (this is no different on lecture days, it's just my nature)
• I measure for my first class.
• While these students are cooking, I prep for the next class.
• As students clean, dry, and return dishes that I gave them, I measure for the next class' labs.
• This only takes me about 5 minutes, instead of the 10 minutes on the students' part.

Foods Lesson: Food Buying, Budget, & Comparison Shopping

This week has been about food labels, comparison shopping, and budgeting for food.

As an introductory question, I asked my students how much they think their parents/families spend on food per week. How much of that amount is spent on processed foods? How much on dining out (fastfood and/or restaurant)? How much on whole foods like fresh produce, meats, and grains?

I started with a Social Studies/Geography tie in. I've seen a trending topic a few years ago about a person who photographed families all over the world and compared their weeks worth of food and prices. I asked the students to estimate how much they thought each family spent on their week's food. The original article I used was from the United Kingdom and the totals were listed in pounds. I obviously had the students figure out how much the pound was compared to the US dollar. Math!

The next day, we talked about how a person can make a menu plan on a budget (inventory what you have already, use store weekly ads, make a menu plan based on the two) and discovered some shopping techniques to help save money. The students then created their own week's worth of dinners, create an itemized grocery list with prices they found online through store circulars, and had to stick to a budget. Math again!

Today, they are comparing store brands with national brands. I purchased 4 types of cereals that had a similar store brand. The students will be looking at the nutrition facts to compare the cereals. They will also be doing a taste test (taste, texture, smell, visual appeal) to see if they can determine which is which. Then, they will decide which to buy.

To prep the cereals, I took gallon size zip-top bags and re-bagged each cereal. I labeled each zip-top bag and created a key for myself. I didn't want the students to be able to tell what cereal was which until a later time.

Cereal Comparison Lab Sheet

Key Notes:

• Students need to be able to use descriptive adjectives (English!) for taste, smell, and visual descriptions.
• It's really important for the students to be able to visually compare each cereal before they consume it. I make sure to tell them to not eat until all cereals have been passed out to all students and then I tell them when they can eat.
• Prices will vary by store. You may want to leave that blank. I was kind and put them in for my students
• We use a lot of technology. I took pictures of the nutrition facts for the similar cereals for comparison. Those could also be photocopied and handed out to students.