Being Green

Whew, things have been so busy! As is always the case with us teachers, I know. I've been logging many a Saturday hour trying to get my kitchens kid-ready. My first group has begun their "Food Unit" rotation, and as soon as we get through food & kitchen safety they'll get their first peek. Luckily it's a somewhat smaller class, so I can focus on four kitchens and let the other two go a bit longer until a larger class rotates in.

One thing that I found desperately necessary in this classroom was relining the kitchen drawers. Most of them are lined with contact paper which must be at least one, probably two, decades old. It's worn out and faded and grimy.

Of all places, Staples had just what I needed: neon, solid-colored contact paper. At my local store they carry yellow, blue, red, and green - four of the six colors I'll need.

Nothing fancy, just clear and obvious which kitchen you're in. Now I just need to find some orange and purple contact paper, and I'll be set!

Student Folders

Here's how I keep track of student behavior and performance as well as parent contact:

On the left side, I have sheets attached to fill in with dates, times, and details for any student or parent contact (calls home, holding a kid after class, grade reports, etc). I tuck copies of all notes sent home, email printouts, grade reports, carbons from referrals, accident reports... any and all relevant paperwork. If called for a last minute meeting, I just grab the folder and go! (And yes, the folders are color-coded to match the class they're in).

Binders

All teachers know that paper flow is a tricky beast to manage, and teachers with several different preps like many of us FACS teachers have to make a little extra effort. I’ve found it works well to make the students keep all materials in one place – a class binder. I provide the binders for all students at the beginning of the year – not cheap, but then there are no excuses not to have one, and since they’re all the same size they fit together much better. I make an address-sized label for each student’s binder on the side with their first name, then place a 2” x 4” label with their full name, the name of the class, and the school mascot on the front of the binder (nice personal touch).

At the beginning of the year I provide them with a blank “Table of Contents” form, and copies of the course syllabus, rules, and procedures to keep in the binder. All notes that they take and a majority of their short assignments are kept in the binder, and students must keep track of all items on their Table of Contents.

I provide a crate for each class to keep their binders in (each crate’s color corresponds to the class’s assigned color, naturally).

Still looking for a yellow crate!

I grade the binders every one to two weeks, using the ToC page – if they don’t record something on that page, it doesn’t get graded. I keep a current copy of the ToC at the front of the room so that they can double check it before it’s do, and I also project it two or three times a week for them to add what they may have missed (I LOVE having a projector in my classroom! How did I live without one?).

Protective sleeves to guard against grimy teen paws.

Color-Coded Tables of Contents!

The advantages for them are that they always have all of their notes, and that I let them use their binders on parts of their tests. All tests have two parts: one must be memorized, the other is open binder. As you can imagine, most of the binder part of the test is application and critical thinking. 

Speaking of tests: rather than hand back tests, quizzes, papers, etc, etc, individually, I just place graded work in the front pockets of the binders along with a grade printout once a week. Saves plenty of class time!

Handouts

You can never predict when the copy machine will break down or when there will be a long line, so most teachers learn quickly it’s best to do as much copying as far in advance as you can. The trouble then sometimes becomes where to store all of those handouts so that you can easily find them when you need them. I keep a small crate at the front of the classroom with about six or seven file folders of each class’s color, and keep that week’s documents in there – easily available, low transition time. Any “leftovers” go into the folders in the filing cabinet, and then they rotate in the following week.

Class Color-Coding

In addition to color-coding the kitchens, I also color-code each class (Foods = blue, Resource Management = green, etc). All important documents (syllabi, rules, rubrics, etc) for each class are copied onto paper that class’s color, all copies of notes/assignments/tests/etc are kept in matching colored hanging files in my filing cabinet, etc. This makes it very easy for me to recognize paperwork at a glance, or find documents quickly.

Job Wheel

There are a few extra tasks that need to be completed during cooking lab clean-up that fall outside of the individual kitchens, and I much prefer to put the kidoodles in charge of these than do them myself. To fairly create a job rotation, I made this job wheel which I change every cooking day:

TABLE – clean off the ingredient table (close lids/boxes/containers, wipe off table)
FLOORS – use the big 3 foot broom to sweep ALL of the kitchens
TOWELS – make sure all towels are in the washing machine, add detergent, start cycle
POWER – check all kitchens to make sure all appliances are turned off

The kids are great about checking the wheel and taking care of business!

Garbage Bowls

Rachael Ray is on to something! During "30 Minute Meals" she always has a "garbage bowl" in an easily accessible location on her counter. Brilliant! This made an enormous difference when I introduced them to my foods classes. Each kitchen has its own (color-coded, of course) garbage bowl, in the form of a sand bucket (thank you, Dollar General). This has seriously cut down on trash lying around the counters, traffic to and from the garbage can, and miss-the-can shots (really, how can you not notice that the butter wrapper fell on the floor rather than in the trash can). Highly recommended!

Glass Etching

For quite some time I struggled with how to make ownership of the Pyrex dishes obvious - orange-tinted 13" x 9" baking dishes aren't widely available these days. Pinterest came to the rescue, however, with the brilliant solution: glass-etching! So amazingly easy to do, and the results are stunning.

Ordinary, mild-mannered glass bakeware.

Ordinary, mild-mannered contact paper. I made these using an x-acto

knife, before I discovered the wonder of Cricut. Cricuts cut contact

paper beautifully!

Peeled contact paper, attached to bottoms of glassware.

Close-up!

Glass etching cream - I use Armour Etch. It's cheap, and easy to find

at any craft store (Michael's, Joanne Fabrics, Hobby Lobby, etc).

Rinse, peel, and...

Amazing!

One for each kitchen.

Even works for pie plates!

Not only is this wonderful for organizing FACS kitchens, it also makes for FABULOUS wedding shower gifts! I etched a whole set for one of my best friends with her married name for her shower, and it was a huge hit with her and the rest of the guests. 

Kitchen Color-Coding

November 2, 2016 Update: "Special Deal" with over 100 new FACS resources reopened for Nov 2016-Oct 2017!

The one area of the FACS classroom which takes the most time and creates the most headaches would have to be the kitchens, so this is where I will start. The way I organize my kitchens revolves around one concept: color-coding. Color-coding is pervasive throughout all of my classroom management systems, as we’ll see later on, but nowhere is it more obvious than in the cooking labs.

To begin with, each kitchen is assigned a different color. This is by no means a new idea, as I’ve seen many schools organized this way. Oddly, two of the three schools I’ve taught at did not have such a system in place when I started there. The beauty of the color-coded kitchens is that you know where everything belongs, and it’s easy to communicate which station you’re referring to when giving directions.


Make it Obvious

There are several things I do to make the color-coding system in the kitchens obvious. First, each kitchen has a sign declaring that kitchen’s color – these lovely posters are available at LearningZoneExpress.com,  my favorite source of FACS posters, etc.

Mini Color Posters, #9113

(also available in different languages!)

Next, every drawer and door is labeled with its contents, and the labels are framed with that kitchen’s color. Not only do the labels aid the color coding-system, they fantastically cut down on “Where is?!” “I can’t find?!” “What drawer?!” etc.

Labels before...

One kitchen drawer

Cabinets with "extras" that don't need to be in kitchens are labeled in red.

The "purple" kitchen

Every kitchen has a “Clean Checklist” for cooking labs (more on those later), and each is framed in that kitchen’s color.

To add a little decorative touch, where possible I hung valances above the sinks using a tension rod and fabric of a corresponding color. Really cheers up the place, too!

With leftover fabric I put together some matching oven mitts.

Whenever that elusive grant money actually comes through, I order some big ticket items for the kitchens – the first order I have placed after starting at two of my schools were KitchenAid stand mixers… in colors that match the kitchens, of course!

Once the stand mixers are in place, I whip up some stand mixer covers in the right colors (not coincidentally, the fabric will match the curtains and the oven mitts!).

Despite all of this, some people still will not get it. Every once in a while a student or a teacher will return a borrowed item, and when I tell them “You can just leave it in the sink of the orange kitchen” they will ask “Which one is that?” Not kidding.


Equipment

Color-code your kitchen utensils, and no kid can say “that dirty spatula isn’t ours!” when they are in the “Green” kitchen and the spatula itself is a bright green.

Note the pencil box: I have one in each kitchen that holds the can opener and peelers

(two items kids seem to spend inordinate amounts of time searching for), as well as 

a pair of child's safety scissors for opening packages, etc.

Many schools that color-code their kitchens do so by placing a paint dot on each piece of equipment that belongs to the corresponding kitchen. This is a good start, but I prefer to be a bit more obvious and search for equipment that actually comes in that color. This makes identification much quicker and easier, and the equipment itself typically looks nicer and more attractive to the students.


Usually every summer WalMart puts out sets of measuring cups, spatulas, slotted spoons, etc in various colors. The summer before I began teaching at my current school, the colors WalMart had out were blue, green, orange, and purple – thus, those are the colors of my current kitchens. 

Luckily, Rachael Ray also helps out in this department with cookware! Three years in I was able to order colored cookware: blue, orange, and green from RR, purple from the Paula Deen line.

Always, always put the kids in charge of

washing the new dishes!

Not entirely sure why the scissors are out here...

The orange is my personal favorite.

They even look great in the cabinets!

The kids really get into this after a while. Whenever I bring in a new item I have found (colored grater, peeler, pastry brush, etc) they get pretty excited - "That's purple! That's for OUR kitchen!"