This coming weekend (November 13-14, 2009) FCCLA begins the fall Cluster Meeting series in Washington, DC. The following weekend (November 20-22, 2009) meetings are held in Louisville, KY and Salt Lake City, UT. Thousands of FCCLA members will be taking part in these exciting events!
Tell us where you're headed by participating in our poll (to the right of this post). Don't forget to tell us the great things happening by posting positive updates to our Missouri FCCLA Facebook page. Safe travels and have a great time!
Who can resist a cute cow? Well, that and a chance to win a $500 grant for your project might just entice you to look at some resources that have been made available by the Midwest Dairy Council.
They have developed a curriculum which includes downloadable “Make Change” lesson plans, appropriate for any lessons focusing on health, family and consumer science, or general classroom discussion. The lesson plans and accompanying tools are located inside the “Educator’s Resource Center” at Dairy Makes Sense.
Here, you’ll find posters, a PowerPoint presentation, lesson plans and interactive “cow-culator” activity, hand-outs, charts, recipes, and nutrition guides, all available free of charge.
Educators can also apply for a $500 school grant from Midwest Dairy Council to help empower students to take action for their health and improve their school environment. Fifteen $500 grants will be distributed. The grants are only available to schools in the Midwest Dairy region, which includes Missouri (as well as IA, ND, SD, MN, IL, AR, KS, and eastern OK).
Projects that might be able to utilize these resources would fit well into national programs such as Student Body and Financial Fitness. Using these resources, FCCLA members might be able to develop a project for STAR Events such as Focus on Children or Illustrated Talk.
It's enough to make you moo. (Sorry, I just couldn't resist....)
During the 2009 Access FCCLA Conference, one of the national programs that attendees in the Chapters in Action session learned about is Families First. Families First is an FCCLA national peer education program through which youth gain a better understanding of how families work and learn skills to become strong family members. Its goals are to: help youth become strong family members and leaders for today and tomorrow and strengthen the family as the basic unit of society.
During the training, I asked our guest speaker to discuss communiciation between teens and their families. During the teen years, it's really easy for both teens and their parents to fall into some bad communication traps. Shana Stephenson, from Prevention Consultants, recommends this article for teens from the TeensHealth.org website.
In this article, you'll learn why it's important to talk about everyday stuff (and do it every day), how to discuss difficult topics with your parents (even if you don't want to), how to talk so your parents will listen (you have a role in that), and what to do if you've tried talking to your parents but it's just not working.
It's easy as a teen to complain about your parents - how they don't listen to or understand you (even though I'm not a teen I can remember those feelings) - but you don't have to be a part of the communication problem with your parents and adults in your life. Be part of the solution. These tips might not work for you all of the time, but give them a try.
If this is a topic that is of interest to you, consider using it as part of a Power of One project, making it into a chapter Families First project, or developing an Interpersonal Communications STAR Event.
This post was submitted by Elizabeth Eberhard, State Executive Council Occupational Representative from Region 11
Greetings from the Nevada Regional Tech Center Occupational FCCLA Chapter! We are off to a great start here. I should explain that our chapter meets during class time. We have students that come from Butler, Bronaugh, ElDorado Springs, Hume, Walker, and Nevada. The NRTC chapter has both students from Culinary Arts and Early Childhood Careers. Our officers are elected from both classes. When we have meetings, there are two-one in the morning and one in the afternoon- so all students can attend.
In September, we had a culinary cook-off and formed both our FCCLA and ProStart Culinary Teams. Practices begin this month as we prepare for these competitive events. The Early Childhood Careers will be focusing on service projects that relate to children and other STAR Events.
Several chapter members attended the fall Access FCCLA Conference at the end of October. Emily, an attendee, had this to say about the conference, “Access FCCLA was a great opportunity to meet new people. Our guest speaker was definitely unique and funny and I learned a lot about FCCLA.”
We just opened our Service Edge Café. We are planning to set up collection jars at our Café window to kick off our Dig It Campaign. We are having a hamburger drive in December where all proceeds will go to the Children’s Miracle Network. The Early Childhood Class is selling lollipops. They have raised over $50.00 so far.
Some of the students in our chapter have come up with a dance to the Arrive Alive Buckle Up song. We all have been practicing it and we are planning on submitting a video. We are going to do the dance in our chef coats. We are very excited!
There is always something going on in our chapter and we hope that you enjoy FCCLA as much as we do!
(photo from langwitches Flickr photo stream, based on Alec Couros' "The Networked Teacher")
At the Missouri "Access FCCLA" Conference this week, teachers had the opportunity to attend "The Networked FCS Teacher" workshop. During this workshop teachers Debra Price, Susan Herbert, Tracey Newman, Stephanie Krupa and Krystle Gremaud demonstrated some of the technology tools they each use for both personal learning and classroom instruction.
At the risk of "information overload" I wanted to share with you two tools from the Richard Byrne, of the Free Technology for Teachers blog. Richard digs through hundreds of blog feeds to find the most useful web 2.0 tools for education.
He has recently released two guides that I think you will find very helpful - whether you are in the awareness stage of web 2.0 tools for education or whether you already implement these tools and are learning even more.
"Twelve Essentials for Technology Integration" - Richard reviews 12 tools for document and presentation creation, tools for communication with parents and students, colloborative project tools, and educational alternatives to YouTube.
In "Beyond Google" Richard explores 15 tools and strategies for better search results. If you've been frustrated with regular Google searches in the classroom, then this is the guide for you.
If you attended the workshop and are interested in using Twitter, you might be interested to know you can follow @rmbyrne @debraprice81 @hello_newman @shaybert - as well as @chollingsworth and @MoFCCLA. Also remember to check out Twitter4Teachers and the Missouri educators TweepML list (from @stevejmoore).
So what's next after this workshop? Choose something that was presented that day, and start learning more about it. Set a goal for yourself - it doesn't have to be a big, fancy, stress-inducing goal. Just choose ONE thing to learn about and go from there. Network with other teachers that are learning that same tool. I really think you'll be glad you did.
FCCLA is an organization for students through grade 12 who are taking (or have taken) a course in family and consumer sciences education. Missouri FCCLA has 402 local chapters with nearly 13,000 student members. The state advisor is Christine Hollingsworth, who writes and manages this blog.
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