Classroom Cooking

Something that I love to do with friends and family is cook. I think it would also be something that could be extremely fun to do within the classroom. There are so many different things that you could incorporate it into.

1. Math- While cooking students would get to practice their measuring and maybe even some conversion skills for different recipes.
2. English- You can have students practice their writing and reading skills by looking at recipes and having them write out their favorites to take home.
3. Health- In health you can teach students nutrition facts and how they can create and cook healthy recipes.

I'm sure their are other ways that you can incorporate cooking into school subjects and afterwards I think it would be fun for students to be put into partners and do some type of presentation about cooking a healthy recipe. It would be fun for them to do a recording or cooking video explaining what to do while cooking the recipe and then maybe explain some of the nutrition facts or whatever else they learned about. This way you can incorporate student use of technology as well. I feel like it would be something that students would enjoy doing as it might not be common for students to get to cook in class as well as make their own instructional video for others to learn from.

Any other ways you can think of to incorporate cooking?

Saving grading time

In this video, the speaker talks about ways to help save time when it comes to grading. This could be helpful when it comes to trying to keep grading at home to a minimum and keeping your evenings open for yourself.

I'm done. Now what?

Something that comes up daily for teachers is students who are done their work quicker than other students. Sometimes we don't know what to give them to do when they are done. Here are some ideas that could be used for students when they finish their work early and have some free time.

1. Have an 'I'm done jar'. The jar can be filled with slips of paper that have different types of activities on it. The activities can be things that the students can do in the classroom either on their own or with a partner. It could be useful to have two jars for this- one for individual and one for group or partners. Some activities could be computer/ipad game, checkers, chess or other strategical or educational games. 
2. Another idea you could do is have a bin with sections or a rolling cabinet with drawers in it. For each drawer or cabinet you can have a different activity for kids to do. Have two variations for each activity, one for students doing it alone and one for students with a partner or group. Students can then pick one of the activities or have some fun way for it to be decided like rolling a dice and doing the activity with that number.
3. Another way to keep students busy when they are finished their homework is to have flashcards. Flashcards can be made to help students practice so many different things from various subjects alone or with a partner. Have flashcards for different things the students are currently learning in math or English and they can practice their skills whether it be adding, subtracting or grammar. 

I'm sure there are so many different options for students who have finished their work early. I feel like no matter what you have set up it should be educational for the students and be helpful when it comes to strengthening the skills they are learning. Anyone else have any thoughts or ideas on what can be done for those students who finish early?

Gardening in the Classroom

My step sister and I have been working on planting flowers and different vegetables this spring and it made me think of how fun it would be to do this with a class during the spring. I feel like you could incorporate their learning in different subject areas into this type of project.

• For science you can teach them about plants, their parts and what they need to survive.
• For health you can teach about different food groups and go into what foods are healthy and connecting this to the vegetables they are growing.
• For math you can discuss the space that plants need to grow by having students plan out how big to make the garden and how much of each plant can fit into that area. You could also figure out how much water to give each plant as well.
• For social you can discuss how different plants come from different parts of the world and teach them where each plant they planted come from.

There are probably so many different ideas that could taught when it comes to planting and gardening. Can anyone else think of any?