Incorporate Free Rice Into Your Class "Games"

Use Free Rice as part of your Hunger Games class challenge.

If you plan to have a mock reaping and have your students participate in a class "Games" for your Hunger Games unit, think about incorporating the website FreeRice into it. Free Rice celebrates its 5th birthday this week and you and your students can join in on the celebrations!

CLASSROOM CONNECTIONS
Using FreeRice is an excellent way your students can help combat world hunger. During your Hunger Games unit, have your own "Games" based on who earns the most grains of rice. The student with the most becomes the "Victor." Make sure that your students log in (or create accounts) and have them keep track of the amount of rice they earn. You can create a class group and have the website figure the amount for you, but it will take a little work setting up the group and having students join it.

To help you, here's a free download that has a link to directions and a log to keep track of donated rice: Using FreeRice.com in the Classroom

You can also submit your challenge to the website and have live updates during that time. :) May the odds be ever in your students' favor!

Click on the icon below to begin!

May 8: Happy Birthday Katniss Everdeen

Happy Birthday, Girl On Fire!

Let's see, this would make you a few hundred negative years old?

Will you celebrate Katniss' birthday in your classroom? 

If so, share how you will be celebrating in the comments below.

If you need some ideas, here are 8 things you can have your students do to honor our heroine from The Hunger Games trilogy on May 8th:

1. Participate in Shylah's Literacy Revolution by donating on DonorsChoose.org for classrooms in need of The Hunger Games books.

2. Donate food to your local food bank in honor of all the District citizens.

3. Sing "Happy Birthday" to Katniss or compose your own original birthday song tribute.

4. Create a birthday card for Katniss and post a link below.

5. Look up Katniss' horoscope (Taurus) for May 8.

6. Because Katniss' birthday is the only one we know, look at the character traits/horoscopes of the astrological signs and debate which signs the other characters fall under.

7. Bake a birthday cake (like Peeta would do) for Katniss & share with your classmates.

8. Before class begins, give Katniss the 3-finger silent salute. 

To read more suggestions, check out Sara Gundell's post on The Hunger Games Examiner:
Fans Celebrate 'The Hunger Games' Character Katniss Everdeen's Birthday

The Best Birthday Cake Ever!

So for my 40th birthday today my students surprised me with a Hunger Games inspired cake! They made it themselves and I think it is so cool--and so sweet! 

As a high school teacher, it's a treat to have a student wish you Happy Birthday. Heck, it's a treat to have a student acknowledge you, period! ha ha We don't get the pleasure of receiving positive feedback from our students like elementary teachers...many of our kids are so wrapped up in their teenage lives that their teachers are the last people on earth they would want to bake a cake for. Which, of course, made today even more special!

Here are more pics of this awesome cake. Thank you Breanna, Marissa, Stephanie, Delaney, and Nick! You made my day! :)

 Close-up of Katniss, the girl on fire. Love the orange flames coming from her head! LOL

Oh, and that nipple-looking thing is the cornucopia. It was a truffle...and so delicious!

The gel-frosting mockingjay!

My students (missing Delaney and added a second Stephanie) posing by the cake they made 

(actually, I think Bre did most of it! ha ha). My 1st period class was welcoming the 

distraction from learning, I'm sure. ;) If you look in the background, you can see my 

Hunger Games movie poster--which was given to me by another teacher 

& her daughter (who is a former student).

Notice the tootsie-roll arrow in the top right corner and the parachute (top). :)