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 eet the 2000 national award winner for home-baking education in the Family & Consumer Sciences classroom. Congratulations and thanks to Dorothy Blanton for her winning lesson plan!
Dorothy Blanton
Family and Consumer Sciences Educator
Gettys Middle School
Easley, S.C.
Program: The Kindness Company
Goal:
To create an innovative method of developing essential skills for success in the workplace, home, and community.
Outcomes:
Students will:
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Identify essential personal qualities for success in the workplace, home, and community |
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Identify local, community care organizations; explain how helping others demonstrates good citizenship and character; and plan and implement a project |
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Demonstrate the skills of teamwork, problem solving, decision making, and individual responsibility in a real-life situation |
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Demonstrate basic sewing skills relative to their project |
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Demonstrate essential food safety and preparation skills for their project |
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Successfully use the skills at home to benefit their family |
What 500+ students did:
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Applied to work in a fictional company - The Kindness Company
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Reported to the president of the company |
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Took jobs in seven departments: personnel, planning, design, finance, engineering, materials management, and public relations |
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Attended an orientation meeting where they viewed training videos, completed worksheets, worked in teams, monitored a company bulletin board, and met company goals |
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Fulfilled goals for a sewing or baking project to meet a community need |
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Did production work and met quality checks. Rewards were given to shifts that met company goals |
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Studied personal skills and character traits that lead to success on the job - first impressions, body language, punctuality, responsibility, honesty, trustworthiness, dependability, good citizenship, and good manners |
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Donated Funny Face cookies and decorated gingerbread bears, warm scarves, and hoods to the homeless, wheelchair bags and turbans to cancer patients, and cat pillows and blankets to Project Linus |
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Worked with The Teen Companion program, S.C. Dept. of Social Services, to deliver finished goods to: The Ronald McDonald House, Greenville Rescue Mission, Project Host, Boys Shelter, Children's Home, Tribune Mercy Center, Girls Home, Salvation Army, Head Start, Safe Harbor, Shriner's Hospital, and other local care programs |
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Worked across generations and disciplines to deliver products and services. Parents were invited to attend on production day |
Lesson contents:
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Job application form |
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Job assignment sheet |
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Orientation meeting agenda |
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Departmental duties for seven departments |
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Safe food handling guidelines |
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Recipes with nutrition information: Cinnamon Twists, Refrigerator Cookies, Coloring-Book Sugar Cookies, Funny Face Cookies, and Gingerbread Bears |
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Post-learning evaluation/critical thinking questions |
Project funding:
Grants totaling $9,000 were awarded to provide modern equipment (KitchenAid mixers, Bernina sewing machines, teaching resources and videos). Other local support came from BellSouth, S.C. Department of Education, Wal-Mart, and businesses providing groceries, fabric, and thread.
Creative integration . across ages and disciplines:
Language and arts
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Request assistance in drawing and writing cards to accompany the projects to their recipients. Ask these teachers to judge the creative cookie designs |
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Have students write a feature for an extension newsletter, local newspaper food column, or school Web site |
Business
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See if a local museum, library, or bakeshop will display students' baked works of art |
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Schedule a baking demonstration by the students at their site to promote customer traffic for the business and inform others of the need for community service |
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Ask a local business person to work with the students on job interviewing skills |
Cross generations
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Request senior citizens or adults to assist with teaching the art of decorating cookies |
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Have students work with younger children to teach them how to measure, mix, and safely produce a good, baked product |
Build partnerships
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Involve the leader(s) and members of other organizations (The Teen Companion, Boys & Girls Clubs, 4-H, church and senior groups) in packing, delivering, and interacting with the recipients |
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Have students work with parent(s) to assist with a meal once a week |
Math
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Involve the math teacher in having the students calculate how many recipes or how much of each ingredient are/is needed to complete a baking project for a certain audience |
Food safety
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Have students teach an elementary grade the correct hand-washing method. Also have them explain why handling eggs safely and not eating raw cookie dough are important |
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Check out www.aeb.org for more information |
Science
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Conduct four experimental food labs for students.
Lab 1: Students omit the egg
Lab 2: Students omit the baking soda
Lab 3: Students do not spoon-level measure the flour
Lab 4: Students prepare recipe standard
Have each lab describe what happened to the finished product compared to the standard. What was the function of the ingredient (egg, baking soda) or measuring method? |
The Kindness Company outline:
The Kindness Company operates for nine weeks for 6th and 7th grades; 18 weeks for 8th grade.
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Day 1: Students complete their job applications; teacher prepares job assignments using the sheet |
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Day 2: Teacher gives the following company orientation; students select a community service project |
I. Welcome by the teacher
II. Background information
a. Describe The Kindness Company
b. How and why we formed; examples of community's needs
c. Financial backing; recognition of local supporters, grants, and school
III. Opening remarks from the president (teacher)
a. Success = quality effort + conserving resources
b. What makes a good employee
1. Does his or her best
2. Does not waste company time or materials (resources)
3. Works safely
4. Takes care of company equipment
5. Is team-oriented
c. Moving from temporary status to permanent employee (probation)
d. All will receive production and management training
e. The company needs:
1. Flexible employees willing to learn new things
2. Self-starters who can accept an assignment, plan how to accomplish the task, and then do it
f. Production will begin after all employees are trained
IV. Employee orientation
g. First and second shifts assigned
h. Pay scale and profit sharing
i. First training session - baking or sewing lab machine rules
j. Describe departments and their duties
V. Departmental meetings
k. Look at assigned tasks and, as a team, determine how you will accomplish them
l. Prioritize tasks - complete any tasks that can be done today
VI. Turn in completed work to the company president
The Kindness Company organization:
Using the job assignment sheet, The Kindness Company employees (students) are divided into the following seven departments by the personnel department and the company president (teacher): personnel, planning, design, finance, engineering, materials management, and public relations. The placements are based upon the information on The Kindness Company job applications. Each department is given a list of duties. All company correspondence should be neat, use professional language and include department name, date, and signatures of department members. Each department must write a weekly report to the company president due each Friday.
Departmental Duties:
Personnel Department
1. Elect a department head. Report this name and list other members of the department in two memos to the Planning Department and company president.
2. Receive and review employment applications. Make recommendations to the president concerning future employee job assignments. Tell why you are making each recommendation.
3. Transfer names of department members from the job assignment sheet to create a department roster. Post the roster on the company bulletin board.
4. Interview a different company employee each month and write a handwritten article about that person for the company newsletter. Ask about hobbies, family, favorite school subjects, and future goals. Write two copies. Put one copy in the Design Department's box and one in the president's box.
5. Make recommendations concerning behavior and employee complaints. All decisions must be based on your observations, in addition to employee complaints. You recommend the proper discipline for unprofessional behavior, but the president disciplines. For example, discipline could be time off the sewing machine or baking lab and/or an additional written assignment. Send a written copy of all recommendations to the company president.
6. Review all reports of safety and storage violations. Make written recommendations to the president on how these problems could be avoided.
7. Fill in time-card record sheet with employee names. Use the time-card record sheet attached to a manila envelope to record dates that time cards are turned in for each two-week pay period. Put each employee's time card in the envelope. Turn in the envelope and attached sheet to the company president on each due date.
8. Announce, distribute, and collect employee-of-the-month nomination forms. Each student may nominate one employee who displays good workplace ethics (respect, trustworthiness, fairness, caring, responsibility, and good citizenship).
Planning Department
1. Elect a department head. Report this name and list other members of the department in a memo to the company president.
2. Draw an organizational chart of the company with all department names and labeled with your period number. Post the chart on the company bulletin board.
3. Based on the group the project will serve, decide how much product the class will need to produce. Include packaging needed and number of labels. Write this in a memo and send it to the president.
4. Plan two celebration events for the company. Determine what will be needed for the celebration, who will bring what items, and what tasks will need to be done by whom. Write this in a memo and send it to the president for approval. Celebration events must be approved two weeks prior to the event.
5. Write an article for the first company newsletter (may be handwritten) welcoming new company employees and announcing each department head and the department members. Make two copies. Put one in the Design Department's box and the other in the president's box.
6. Write a note to the parent(s) of the employee-of-the-month on a company card. Tell the parent(s) when the employee will be honored at the company celebration.
Design Department
1. Elect a department head. Report this name and list other members of the department in two memos to the Planning Department and company president.
2. Design a company logo. This will be used on all labels or communications to the groups we serve.
3. Design attractive product labels for the project incorporating the logo.
4. Make a card to accompany our project to identify who produced the products and our school name. This might include the logo plus a poem or other expression.
5. Design an invitation on the computer inviting parents, community members, and school personnel to our end-of-the-course celebration. Store the invitation on disk.
6. Produce (type and print) two copies of a monthly company newsletter. Other departments will prepare the articles. Post one copy of the completed newsletter on the company bulletin board and put the other in the president's box.
Finance/Packaging Department
1. Elect a department head. Report this name and list other members of the department in two memos to the Planning Department and company president.
2. List the costs that will have to be considered for the community service project. (Cost per recipe may be figured by the students or provided by the company president.) Submit a written report to the company president with all the costs the company will have to consider to do the project.
3. Design - draw or describe - the packaging for use in delivering the products.
4. Make a list of materials needed for packaging. Send it to the company president.
5. Decide costs of packaging the products. (President may provide costs for items listed in #4.) Send a written report of packaging costs to the company president.
6. Package products as they are completed. If baked goods, determine how to package for maximum freshness. Determine if freezing would be best to keep baked goods from getting stale before they are delivered.
Engineering Department
1. Elect a department head. Report this name and list other members of the department in two memos to the Planning Department and company president.
2. Design and draw the assembly line process for producing the baked or sewn products for distribution in the project. Include a packaging line. Consult with the Packaging Department about the type of packaging they will recommend. Submit the drawing to the company president. The drawing must be completed two weeks before production of the products.
3. If possible, interview the school lunch manager or invite him/her to attend class to discuss work-flow patterns, equipment maintenance (care), and safety in food production.
4. Observe safety and equipment-use violations. Make two copies of a report. Put one copy of the report in the Personnel Department's box and the other in the company president's box.
5. Interview each employee-of-the-month. In the interview, ask the following questions: Why do you think you were chosen? Who has had the greatest positive influence in your life? What kind of job do you think you would like to have in the future? What training will you need for it? Write two copies of an article for the company newsletter. Put one copy in the Personnel Department's box and the other in the company president's box.
Materials Management Department
1. Elect a department head. Report this name and list other members of the department in two memos to the Planning Department and company president.
2. Supervise cleanup and storage of materials each day. Make two copies of a written report of violations. Put one copy in the Personnel Department's box and the other in the company president's box.
3. Make a list of any employees you observe being wasteful with company materials, including water. Put the list in the company president's box.
4. Make a list of your recommendations for better materials control. Put the list in the company president's box.
5. Take a picture of each employee of the month. Label the picture with the employee's name, make a background sign explaining who is pictured and the honor they have received. Display the picture and sign on the company bulletin board.
6. Write a monthly article for publication in the company newsletter about the project or a training that is being done. Tell about the progress of the project and who will benefit. Make two copies of the article. Put one copy in the Design Department's box and one in the company president's box.
Public Relations Department
All company personnel are members of the Public Relations Department when they are not working on their other duties. Put all work completed for the Public Relations Department in the company president's box. All completed public relations projects that are neat and well-done will be recorded as extra-credit grades.
Public relations duties include:
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Writing press releases or articles for the company newsletter, school newsletter, parents, or company president |
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Making signs or posters advertising The Kindness Company, our products, or the projects in which we are involved |
10 steps to safe food:
1.Wash hands before and after preparing, decorating, packaging, or serving food
Use soap and warm, running water
Wash wrists, back of hands, between fingers, and under fingernails vigorously for 20 seconds
Rinse well
Dry hands with a paper towel
Use paper towel to turn off water
2. Keep hair pulled back
3. Change dishcloths for every class
4. Clean counters before and after preparing batter or dough, baking, serving, or packaging
Sanitize surfaces with one teaspoon bleach in one quart water
Immediately clean surfaces if any raw egg or batter drips
5. When not preparing or working with it, keep unused batter or dough covered and refrigerated at 40°F or colder
6. Never eat raw batter or dough
7. Bake as recipe directs until baked goods are completely done
8. Cool baked goods on cooling racks before packaging
9. Package products with new plastic wrap, foil, or sealable bags
10. Freeze baked products if they will not be delivered within one day
Employees (students) will view training videos on baking basics.
The company can decide on baking one or more of the following products, depending on the student's grade level:
Refrigerator Cookies
Cinnamon Twists & Tea
Coloring-Book Sugar Cookies
Funny Face Cookies and Colored Sugar for Decorating
Gingerbread Bears
Evaluation/critical thinking questions:
Help the students evaluate the living skills they have learned in class.
Stated outcome:
Students will demonstrate essential food safety and preparation skills for the project.
Fifty-three percent of adult Americans feel they have less knowledge and fewer cooking skills than their mothers or grandmothers. (USA Today Snapshots®, Yankelovich Partners, Inc.)
Critical thinking questions:
1. Why do you think this may be true? What is the trend in your family?
2. How does this affect how you achieve dietary and Food Guide Pyramid guidelines?
3. What impact does this have on family life? On community life?
4. How does it impact our health if we do not have cooking skills?
5. Demonstrate or describe six steps to proper hand washing; demonstrate or describe how to measure wet and dry ingredients; and give three food-safety tips.
Stated outcome:
Students will successfully use their skills at home to benefit their families. Eating together as a family improves everything from reading skills to helping prevent substance abuse. Five times a week is a minimum goal. We also know eating more home-prepared foods helps us meet Dietary Guidelines.1
Critical thinking questions:
1. Does your family sit down to eat together? If no, why not?
2. With as many as 70 percent of mothers working outside the home, what might help families eat more home-prepared foods and eat together more often?
3. With the skills you are gaining, how could you serve as a meal preparation partner to help make this happen?
4. What are three more things you want to learn so you can help with meals at home? 5. When you work, what are ways you could help to make meals together happen?
Stated Outcome:
Identify essential personal qualities for success in the workplace, home, and community.
More than one in five literate Americans is functionally illiterate. "Almost half of Americans over 16 are nearly unemployable in most workplaces." (Adult Literacy in America study, Educational Testing Service, Princeton, N.J., 1998)
Critical thinking questions:
1. What does it mean to be functionally illiterate? ["Lack ability to read and write adequately to function in modern society." Marilyn Vos Savant.]
2. How can learning to bake or sew assist you in becoming functionally literate? [SCANS2 basic competencies such as reading and following directions, applying math and
3. science, problem solving, time management, team work.]
4. What other work skills are you gaining from The Kindness Company?
Stated Outcome:
Identify local community care organizations, explain how helping others demonstrates good citizenship and character, and plan and implement a project.
A community is "All the people who live in a particular city or district." (Webster's New World Dictionary)
Critical thinking questions:
1. What is the community in which you live? Are children part of the community?
2. What groups of people in your community have needs the community will have to help fill to be sure they are met? (Examples: parents, single moms, people visiting with sick family members, elderly living alone or in care centers, or homeless.)
3. Are you important to the community in which you live? List five resources you have which you can contribute to help make living in your community better. (Examples: time, ability to read to others, play with or teach others, and ability to prepare food or clothing.)
4. When you work at The Kindness Company, what do you accomplish?
5. What did you gain from your project(s) in the community?3
Objective:
Demonstrate the skills of teamwork, problem solving, decision-making, and individual responsibility in a real-life situation.
The Secretary of Labor's SCANS2 report cites three areas of essential foundation skills for employability:
1. Basic (reading, writing, math, listening and speaking).
2. Thinking (creative thinking, decision making, problem solving, visualization, knowing how to learn, and reasoning).
3. Personal qualities (responsibility, self-esteem, sociability, self-management, and integrity/honesty).
Critical thinking question/activity:
Give an example from your work for The Kindness Company and discuss how that work helped you improve in one area for each of the three essential foundation skills listed.
References:
1Lin, Biing-Hwan; Guthrie, Joanne; Frazao, Elizabeth. Away-from-Home Foods Increasingly Important to Quality of American Diet. USDA-ERS Agriculture Information Bulletin Number 749. January, 1999. www.econ.ag.gov; 800/999-6779.
2The Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS). The U.S. Secretary of Labor. 1995.
Mothers and Grandmothers Know Best. USA Today Snapshots, January, 1997. Study by Yankelovich Partners, Inc.
Special Report: The Breakdown of the Family Meal. Tufts University Health & Nutrition Newsletter. July 1991.
Vos Savant, Marilyn. "Ask Marilyn." Parade Magazine, p. 16. September 20, 1998. Reports "Adult Literacy."
Training resources used:
6th grade
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"Safety and Sanitation in Handling Food," Franklin Clay Films |
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Baking Basics (Biscuits, Yeast Breads), Home Baking Association |
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"All About Cookies," Franklin Clay Films |
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Bac Attack!, The Partnership for Food Safety Education |
7th grade
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Clean Up Your Act! Fighting Household Germs, Learning Seed |
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Baking Basics (Muffins & Pancakes, Cookies), Home Baking Association |
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Food Science, Kitchen Mysteries Revealed, Learning Seed |
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Zap It! What You Don't Know About Microwaves, Learning Seed |
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In Good Taste: Careers in Food Science, Institute of Food Technologists |
8th grade
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"Make a Difference" video series ("Manners Do Matter", "Instant Impressions," "Cs of Confidence", "Courtesy Counts"), Pineapple Appeal |
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Personal Ethics and the Future of the World, Varied Directions International. |
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"In Search of Character" video series ("Trustworthiness", "Diligence"), Live Wire Media |
View lesson plans from the 1998 Home Baking Association National Baking Extension Family & Consumer Sciences Educator Award Winner.
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