How Do You Teach Child Development to Middle School kids?

I love the acronym PIES - Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Social Development. Naturally, my students almost always ask me if this means they get to eat pie?! Lol. No. 

With my 8th graders, I use the ppt. attached. This is one a FACS friend of mine made that I have adapted to meet the needs of my little darlings. It takes me about 3 - 40min class periods to get through this lesson and every time I have at least a dozen kids tell me how much fun it was!

I start this lesson with old-school storytelling! I make them all come and sit criss-cross-applesauce on the floor in the front of the room. I read them my favorite childhood story - “Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day.” This is fun for them and me! I then tell them that for extra credit they can bring their favorite childhood books over the next 2 days and read theirs to the class as well (I cut them off sometimes if they are a little long). After reading we talk about how the book is significant for young children and what morals they are supposed to gain from it. 

Then I open the ppt. and we discuss why I teach them child development and how this is important to them. While discussing I pass them each a scratch piece of paper and instruct them to write down their top 5 favorite toys, games, or tv shows from their childhood, as far back as they can remember. I then make them choose just one and we round-robin share this with the class. I like to tell them about my childhood favorite - Flight attendant barbie! They love this and often have a hard time just choosing one!

PIES ppt.

Then we dive into PIES! For each area of PIES, I make them write down the definition and then we focus on ages 3, 4, and 5. (In 7th grade we focus on ages 0-3) for each section. I also include a short funny video clip for each area of PIES to help them remember - I love this one about a girl learning to read for intellectual: Intellectual Video

Other links just in case- 

Physical - This one is also great for discussing the rate of development

Emotional - Just adorable.

Social - Not the original in my ppt- but very cute!

For my hands-on activity, I use the  “A Childs's World” activities. I set up stations on all 7 of my food lab tables. Each station is designed to bring them back to ages 3-5 through various activities that hinder their abilities or remind them of being a kid! Here is the activity sheet I give them:

A Childs World Worksheet/Instructions

They usually love all the activities and ask if we can do them again! The most popular are the play-dough and Legos. I keep a tote box of my supplies so it is easy to set up. I got my legos at a thrift store for cheap and they have random off-brand legos mixed in to make it more complicated. I found my hidden image sheet online. I buy random noodles on sale and use old yarn for the macaroni jewelry station. I recommend kids' safety scissors for cutting out shapes - they hate it! I also found my 100-piece puppy puzzle at a thrift store!

Tables before the chaos

Coloring with a non-dominant hand

Cutting with safety scissors

Noodle Necklaces

Play-dough

Hidden Images

Legos!