Teacher Tuesday: Dinner On A Budget

Thank you to Sarah Kolkman, Instructor at Shepherds College, for writing today's blog.

Dinner on a Budget project was created as a way to challenge students who finish work early in the first-year class, Math and Money Skills.   There is a diverse range of abilities in math, in which every student in one subject excels or struggles.   In order to allow individual attention on those who struggle with the math concepts and allow those who have completed the assignment additional REAL training, a blue folder appeared in the back of the classroom. 

Students were instructed that if their work was completed and turned in, they could work on additional math practice or grab the blue folder in the back of the room.  Inside the folder contained steps to planning a dorm dinner on a budget.  Working as a team, the math students were to plan the meal, budget the expenses, shop, prepare, and serve the meal for all the first-year class. 

Cooking for over 24 students plus staff on a $50.00 budget turned out to be more difficult than they thought.

Soon students were eagerly finishing their assignments as quickly as they could so they can work on the blue folder.  Students quickly had a menu mapped out which included a potato bar dinner, fruit salad and broccoli for the side, and Orange Julius to drink.  (Reaching across the curriculum, students used their Daily Living Skills knowledge when planning the meal, making sure every food group was accurately represented based on MYPlate.gov)

The tricky part was getting the price down.  A week before the dinner, some math students made a trip to the grocery store to research the ingredients and their prices. 

  

Not only were they challenged with finding the cheapest price per unit, but estimating how much of that ingredient would feed 24 hungry college students.  Adding up our total, it came to over $100!  Yikes!  Not discouraged, students went back and combed through their recipes and ingredient list.   They found areas they could cut out and trim back on, and finally turned in a budget proposal that was under $50.00.

The following week, another group of math students went back to the grocery store to shop for their items. 

As students will learn in their 2nd year, food is a flexed expense, meaning it changes.  Some of the prices had changed from our original trip.  With quick thinking and a couple of returns, students were able to purchase everything, bring it back to the dorms, dice, steam, and bake the food into a wonderfully prepared potato bar meal. 

I am so proud of my math students.  Each and every one of them had a role in this project, and they demonstrated great team work, problem solving, and overall budgeting skills.

Shepherds College - Guiding Your Transition to Appropriate Independence. Please visit us at www.shepherdscollege.edu.

Teacher Tuesday: Raising Some Dough

I love my job.

Have I told you that already? I might have. .. because I really love my job, and I tell anyone who will listen.

As with any job, some days are better than others, and some days are simply the best.

The best days at Shepherds College? I have quite a few:

Preview Days – I love watching all the nervous faces of our potential students walking in the door at 8am and watching all the excited, hopeful faces walking out the door at 3pm. 

CSA days – I buy a share in Turtle Creek Gardens, the Community Supported Agriculture farm that works with our Horticulture interns.  On CSA delivery days, I walk to the Horticulture classroom and pick up a box of fresh, organic produce that our Horticulture students helped to grow, harvest and box up.  I bring it home, lay it out on the counter and exclaim, “Look what our students grew this week!”

Days when I give tours – As the Marketing Director, there are occasions when I have the opportunity to offer a tour to photographers or journalists or news reporters. Some come to our campus kind of blasé - they’re just doing their job – but leave the campus interested and invested in the work of the college. Watching the transformation makes my day.

Any day a student visits my office just to say hi or hugs me in the hallway.

Graduation week – the Baccalaureate, the celebration, the ceremony – all occasions for happy tears, lots of prayers and intense joy. 

And, of course, the days Chef McCarthy sends out an email inviting all the staff to the Culinary Arts kitchen to sample the yumm-o creations made by his talented students.  Here’s an example:

“Today from 11:15 to 11:45 you will have another great opportunity to get something sweet from the CA program!  We will be making scones brimming with chocolate chips, toffee and pecans.  EVERYONE gets one free scone and you can take home a half dozen for only $3!  They warm or toast up nicely for a morning treat.  Spread with jam or butter and enjoy!”

Can you see why this would be a good day to be a Shepherds employee?  I see “chocolate,” “free scone,” and “only $3” all in the same paragraph!!

I know some of you are thinking, ‘Okay, I get the chocolate and the free pastry, but what’s so great about paying $3 for food? I can do that at any drive-through.’

I love it because I know where my $3 is going. I know that my money will help pay for the Culinary Arts students to go on important field trips that will support their education in the food industry.

By asking for a donation for fresh scones, toffee pecan cookies, chocolate lava cake, clam chowder, roasted turkey, pot roast, lobster pizza, deep-fried catfish sandwiches and anything else made by the students, Chef McCarthy is able to pay for each student to visit places like the Wisconsin Restaurant Association Food Show, or the Gordon Food Service Distribution Facility where the students watched the corporate chef's demonstration on beef and were given a behind the scenes tour of the distribution facility to show how an order is picked, packed and shipped to the restaurant after the order is placed.

Our donations have paid for the exciting trip to the Taste of Home headquarters where the students cooked with the recipe testers, tasted the recipes, and saw how the food stylists and photographers prepared the recipes for publishing.  

Chef McCarthy has also taken the students to visit the Olive Oil shop in Lake Geneva and the Brewers Stadium Food Service Kitchens for a behind the scenes tour.

These trips are opportunities for the students to observe firsthand how the skills they are learning in the classroom are used in a professional environment. 

They enrich the students’ education with R.E.A.L. experiences.

They provide the opportunity for the students to interact in community.

And they fill the students with dreams for a future that could very well be theirs…

 

 


Shepherds College - Guiding Your Transition to Appropriate Independence. Please visit us at www.shepherdscollege.edu.

Teaching the Tabernacle

Day 20 of the 31 for 21 Challenge

I already told you how engaging Miss Fye is as a teacher, how she infuses energy and R.E.A.L. instruction in all her lessons. Today I want to show you one of her lessons in the Roots of Faith class with the first year students.

The students are learning about the Tabernacle, the portable dwelling place for God from the time the Israelites left Egypt to the conquering of Canaan. Built to exact specifications revealed by God to Moses, the Tabernacle accompanied the Israelites throughout their years of wandering and their conquest of the Promised Land.

Walk with the students through the outer court, the outer chamber and the Holy of Holies.

Miss Fye prepared the students with prayer and worship music to enter the Tabernacle

Ryan walking to the Outer Court

Students at the Bronze Alter, the place of sacrifice, in the Outer Courts

Volunteer Kristen taught the students about the Bronze Basin

Also called the Bronze Laver, it was a place with water to wash, and represents the cleansing of our sins

Many of the teachers measured their areas so the students had a clear picture of the measurements God gave to Moses

Students entered the Outer Chamber, the Holy Place

Mrs. Anderson taught them about the Golden Lampstand

Students then visited the Table of Bread

Mrs. McCarthy taught them the importance of the Altar of Incense which stood just before the veil leading to the Holy of Holies.

Mr. Anderson's lesson was taught in the Holy of Holies and covered the Ark and the Mercy Seat.

Shepherds College - Guiding Your Transition to Appropriate Independence. Please visit us at www.shepherdscollege.edu.