Fall and Halloween projects for the Classroom (Plant Life Cycles and Pumpkin Math)

Here is a cute yet educational project that is perfect for the season and teaches students about the plant life cycle. It starts with the seed, then the leaf, the flower…until you have an unripe pumpkin and a ripe pumpkin. You can write the numbers of the steps to help students put the life cycle steps in order. The [...]

Fifteen Frugal Things I do

Fifteen Frugal Things I do

Bring Election Excitement to Your Classroom

It’s not too late to get your students involved in the election!  You don’t have to spend a lot of money to do it either.
  
University of Virginia’s Center for Politics Youth Leadership Initiative has a large number of teacher’s resources, lesson plans and background information for schools to use when teaching about the election.  Enrollment [...]

Beating Lice , Dandruff and More with Homemade Remedies

The combination of lice becoming more resistant to medications (which are usually insecticides, by the way) and the fact that many parents don’t pick out the nits, (the eggs) means that getting rid of lice in a classroom can be difficult.
An old timey remedy is to rinse hair with a 50:50 vinegar to water rinse.  This [...]

Free Teacher Resources and Lesson Plans from Agriculture in the Classroom

Agriculture in the Classroom is a program started by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help students understand where their food comes from.  This is an issue near and dear to my heart. Few Americans truly understand how important and fragile our food system is.  We take it for granted.
 
But it’s not only about that—it’s [...]

Growing Celery and Onions FOR FREE

As I was chopping celery this morning for a classroom experiment, I thought I should share this tip: Save the bottom (root) part of the celery that you cut off. Bury an inch down in a pot of soil and in a few weeks you will have celery cutting to use in your cooking!

I freeze the [...]