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!

Dishwashing Soap

One thing that all new Family & Consumer Science teachers learn within their first two cooking labs is that if you put a full bottle of dishwashing soap out in each of the kitchens, the kids go through it like no tomorrow. For a while I used the smaller bottles and just refilled them from a larger bottle – it got the job done, but the outer labels tended to get pretty gunky after a while. Then I found this fabulous idea from http://facsideas.blogspot.com/ - use craft bottles! Definitely a “why didn’t I think of that???” kind of moment. Fill these up part way and they last for several labs, the squeeze tops prevent extra soap from running down the sides, and they are very easy to clean. Thank you Shelley!

Garbage Cans

This is a departure from the “Color-Coding” theme, but a good tip. I set all of my garbage cans/recycling bins on top of chairs. As we’ve all noticed many high school kids are apparently just a little too tall to be able to successfully navigate trash INSIDE the trash can. They are also so tall that they can’t see their garbage all the way down there on the floor. Raising the trash receptacles to hand level eliminates 99% of that nonsense.

And yes, it is definitely time to take out the recycling!

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!"

FACS Classroom Ideas

All FACS teachers know that we have a crazy amount of tools, materials, and resources that need to be well-organized and maintained in order to create a successful classroom environment. While I have scored a few good ideas from the Internet, I find the online world seriously lacking in truly practical tips to help teachers establish an orderly classroom specifically for Home Ec. Through trial and error, creative thinking, and (I’m not ashamed to admit it) outright theft, I’ve implemented several successful ideas in my classroom over the years. The purpose of this blog is to share my ideas with others looking for the same thing, and hopefully to have other teachers share their ideas with me!