Resources for Family & Consumer Sciences (Home Economics)

When I was in 8th grade, they called it home economics. My cooking teacher had us make apple turnovers by using the Pillsbury cylinders, which was nothing more than open, lay out the dough, squeeze the apple filling in the middle, close the turnover, bake and put the icing on. Today, known as family and consumer sciences, the students actually learn how to bake from scratch. (What a concept!) Anyway, if you teach in this area, I've collected a list of resources for you below. A good starting point is Family Consumer Sciences.

COOKING
38 Free Cooking Worksheets

Cooking Calculator- also find kitchen conversions

Cooking Terms-  lesson plan complete with downloadable worksheets

Food Resources for Teachers- nice listing by grade level from TeacherVision

NUTRITION
Food History Lesson Plans-includes diversity lessons, food science and technology

Free Printables- nutrition, food, health


Mypyramid: Simple Steps for Healthy Living- lesson plan from Discovery Education

Nutrition Lesson Plans- from TeAchnology

FASHION
Fashion Design Lesson Plans and Activities- teacher reviewed and listed by grade level


Fashion Design and Merchandising Lessons

Fashion Lesson Plans- from the Lesson Corner; nice listing covers grades 6-12

The History of Fashion- many attachments, including PowerPoint presentations, MS Word docs

Lesson Plans: Costume Design- Project Runway costume, garbage bag costume

SEWING
About.com's Listing for Sewing Techniques- many resources

Beginning Sewing- from CraftandFabricLinks.com

Sewing Lesson Plans- from Lesson Planet

Sewing Lessons-Level 1

Sewing.org- free sewing projects, learn to sew articles, templates, blog posts

Sewing Tips

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Infographic: Anatomy of a Great Teacher

Source: Top Teaching Colleges

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30 Places to Find Chemistry Teaching Resources

20 Things You Didn't Know About the Periodic Table - Discover Magazine

AP Chemistry PowerPoints-  6 units covered

AP Chemistry Study Cards

Chemistry 11- lessons and handouts

Chemistry 12- lessons and handouts

Chemistry Animations- 8 Flash animations

Chemistry Comes Alive- Chemistry Video Collection from the Journal of Chemical Education

Chemistry Demonstration Videos- 10 packets on various subject

Chemistry Lab Safety Tutorial

Chemistry Lecture Notes 

Chemistry Lesson Plan Links- from the Science Spot

Chemistry Lesson Plan Menu

Chemistry Software and  Science Teaching

ChemSpider - free chemical database which provides "fast text and structure search access to over 28 million structures from hundreds of data sources."

ChemSynthesis- Chemical Database

Doctor Mad Science- videos of experiments

Finding Science in Ice Cream

Flynn Scientific's Teacher Resources 

Free Chemistry Video Lectures- long list from LearnersTV

General Chemistry Glossary

General Chemistry Online!- includes simulations, compound library, tutorials and much more

High School Chemistry Education Resources- from the American Chemical Society

Interactive Chemistry Simulations- nice collection from the University of Colorado at Boulder

Mole Clip Art

NeoK12 Periodic Table Videos- reviewed by K12 teachers 

The Periodic Table of Comic Books- choose an element and see which comic book involving that element

The Periodic Table of Videos- includes quizzes

Reactions in Chemistry- from the Annenberg Foundation; VOD (video on demand)

Reeko's Mad Scientist Science Experiments- chemical reactions, chemistry experiments here; experiments are rated easy, medium, hard, dangerous

TeAchnology's List of Chemistry Lesson Plans

Top 10 Mad Science-Worthy Chemistry Experiments

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Planboard Will Help Organize Your Lesson Plans

Planboard allows you to plan your classes, share schedules, add worksheets and more. The site provides a blog, and the free account allows you to post 100 lesson plans/25MB storage. If you desire unlimited lesson plans and unlimited standards, it will only cost you $29.95 per year. Is it worth about $3.00 a month? Judge for yourself by viewing the videos below:

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Google is Closing Feedburner By October 20th: Fact or Fiction?

There's a lot of speculation on the web that Google is about to close Feedburner by October 20, 2012. I can't imagine what I'd do if this happened. But it's kind of eerie that this morning my readers droppped to zero when yesterday the figure was close to 1300. What have YOU heard? Please discuss below......

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Places to Personalize Your Shortened URLs

I'm sure many of you have used URL shorteners when posting on Twitter. But what if you want to place a web address on a banner, poster or sign which is easy to remember? In my school, I advertise our Amazon.com School Rewards account with a banner I got from VistaPrint. I wanted to make sure people could remember the shortened URL, so I personalized it through doiop. What started with a long address ( http://www.amazon.com/?&tag=ridgparkjunis-20&camp=212677&creative=384113&linkCode=ur1&adid=05120P9PQB3VVV7MZC55& ) became http://doiop.com/RPHS . What a difference. The sites below will allow you to personalize your long URLs:

Click on "custom link" on Cligs to create your personalized URL ending.




 I've used doiop before and it's very easy to personalize




 

 Is.gd allows you to enter the address to compress, then choose "further options/shorten URL"

Make a long URL notlong.

Snip sites easily with SNIPURL; also make site private be entering a code at the end of the address.

Tiny.cc lets you manage your URL with stats; very easy to personalize.

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P.A. : What Not to Say to a Teacher

I saw this on the blog Techie Bytes and had to share it with all of you. True and a funny.

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37 Resources: The 2012 Presidential Election

 My niece turns 18 in December. Too bad for her, because now she won't be able to vote in a presidential election for until 2016. Students in my school are encouraged to register to vote and should be made aware of who the candidates are and what they stand for. Civics and social studies teachers can utilize the links below for lessons in class.


THE ELECTION2012 Election Scrapbook-

2012 Political Map Center- interactive map from PBS New Hour

2012 Presidential Election- list of resources about the election

2012 Voting Lessons-  115 page document covers grades K-12

All About Electing a President of the United States-for younger kids; well explained

Candidate Match Game 2- interactive

Eight Steps to the White House- from CNN; uses comic book graphics

Election 2012: Teaching Ideas and Resources- from the NY Times

Election 2012- from Scholastic; excellent from younger students

Election of the President- from Ben's Guide to U.S. Government for Kids

Elections and Voting Lesson Plans- from TeAchnology

Getting to Know the Candidates: Analyzing Their Campaign Ads

I Side With- take a short quiz and see which candidate sides with you

Livebinder on the Presidential Elections

National Student Mock Election- great for ESL students

Play the Election- from Rand McNally

Virtual Presidential Debate- created by teacher Paul Solarz

Vote 2012: An Election Scrapbook- provided by the NY Publishers Association; covers the election; great for each student to use as a guide.

OBAMA
Barack Obama- official site

Barack Obama Biography- from BIO

Barack Obama on the Issues- extensive list

Barack Obama's Life in Pictures- from ABC

Barack Obama's Road to the White House

Milestones: Barack Obama- interactive timeline of Barack Obama's life and career; New York Times

Obama Land- Associated Press' look at Obama's life



Obama's Twitter Account


President Barack Obama- White House profile


ROMNEY



Latest Mitt Romney News - from ABC News

Mitt Romney: Biography

Mitt Romney on the Issues

Mitt Romney: Huff Post Articles

Mitt Romney's Life- from the Wall Street Journal

Mitt Romney's Official Site

Mitt Romney's Twitter Account

Romney's Republican National Convention Speech

What Romney Should Have Said to Schoolchildren about his "prank" and bullying- Washington Post

YouTube Channel for Mitt Romney

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22 Resources to Teach About September 11, 2001

Today is the 11th anniversary of 9-11 and I wanted to share a host of resources for you and your students. Working with kids who are 12-18 years old, many of my students were as young as 1 year old when this tragedy occurred. The subject matter can be very frightening to some, so review sites completely.


 The 9/11 Commission Report- 585 page PDF file

9/11 Interactive Timeline- excellent

9/11 Lesson Activity With Word Clouds

9/11 Memorial- resources from the NYC Department of Education

ABC Teach Worksheets for Kids

Best Books for Teaching About 9/11- from Education World

The Best Sites to Help Teach About 9/11- from ESL teacher Larry Ferlazzo

CNN: Chronology of Terror- September 11

Education World 9/11 Lessons and Resources

How to Help Your Students Observe the 9/11 Anniversary- from Edutopia

Scholastic: 9/11: The Day That changed America- younger kids

September 11: Bearing Witness to History- from the Smithsonian

September 11: Never Forget- listing of resources from Vicki Blackwell

Teach Hub- list includes books about 9/11

TeacherVision Resources for September 11, 2001- long list

Teaching 9/11- by age level

Teaching 9/11: Lessons to Inspire Your Students

Teaching September 11 Shelf- LiveBinders

Teaching and Learning About 9/11 from The New York Times

The Ultimate Resource Guide to Teaching About September 11th- from Edudemic

U.S. Department of Education Resources for Teachers- resources from TeachingHistory.org, Center for Civic Education

A Virtual Visit to the National September 11th Memorial- from EdSITEment

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Two Pages Added to the Blog!

I just added pages for Language Arts and Science and will be constantly updating them with resources. Tabs for all pages are located at the top of the blog. Looking for something special? Just let me know and I'll get working on it.

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Teacher-Librarians: How Do You Fit In?

This week was the first week of school in my district. We had two days of meetings and professional development. On day two, everyone met with their department for their first meeting. I don't have a department; no library aide; no other adult to share concerns and ideas with. (I work in a junior-senior high school) What is your situation like? Please add your comment below.

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Need Calendar Templates? Try This Website

All I needed was a blank Word template for the month of September 2012. I was trying to schedule three business classes for in-class lessons on GoogleDocs, and found WinCalendar for oodles of Word templates.You can choose monthly, weekly, holidays and single month calendars.

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CamScanner Turns Your Smartphone into a Scanner and Fax Machine

It's the beginning of the school year, and if your school is like mine, you have already been inundated with loads of papers. (Somehow the notion of saving paper with online PDFs didn't happen here) With schedules, rules and regulations etc. everyone has a folder of new "stuff" which can easily be stored. I chose to scan the documents and sent them to the cloud for storage. What did I use? CamScanner.

CamScanner is an app for iPhone and Android phones, which  enables your phone to scan and fax documents. The free version has commercials and a limit to how many documents you can scan and the paid version eliminates commercials and allows unlimited scanning. If you are going to use the program a lot, I recommend the paid version, since it's only $4.99.

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Welcome to the New School Year!!

I realize that I have been absent for 95% of the summer and I apologize for that. Health issues have finally been straightened out, and I'm ready to begin the new year tomorrow.  In the meantime, I've prepared some important links for you to use.

New teachers, click here for oodles of assistance.

Teacher-Librarians and Media Specialists will find a ton of resources here.

If you are still looking for a teaching job, try this listing.

I promise to begin more new posts as of tomorrow.  Have a great year!!

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