Maker Projects & Education
Brrrm brm brm brm brm brm brm, brrrm b’ brrrm,
Brrrm brm brm brm brm brm brrrm b’ brrrm,
Brrrm brm brm brm brm brm brrrm b’ brrrm.
Brrrm brm brm brm brm brm brrrm.Take me riding in the car, car;
Take me riding in the car, car;
Take you riding in the car, car;
I’ll take you riding in my car.— The Car Song, Woody Guthrie
When I’m not being a father or husband or woodworking, motorcycling, teaching, or any host of other things, I’ve been known to engage in miniature wargaming. For those not in the know, think green army men on steroids. Or Dungeons and Dragons on the battlefield. Or…
Anyways, I have two students which need to learn fractions and probability at the fifth/six/seventh grade level. My hook: Probability Dungeon Crawl. With miniatures.
Rules after the jump….
…if we only let it. I’m lucky. Most of the time, my school walks this walk and talks this talk. I hope your’s does too.
How do you transform factory era school systems so that they better serve the needs of an information age society? You don’t do it by being timid.
Unlike most school reformers floating ‘tweak-the-status-quo’ proposals these days (let’s test kids more! let’s get rid of a few teachers! let’s make school longer! let’s lecture better!), the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents (CAPSS) decided to swing for the fences:
About a week ago, this blog surpassed 10000 visits. With this post, WoodshopCowboy also surpassed 100 posts – thanks for your time & support! It’s been a blast.
My boys are back in town and they are locked and loaded – here’s a few glamor shots of their beautiful simple benches.
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Remember – if these look good to you, come build your own version with me at TX/RX Labs in May.
…isn’t always about nature.
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…and it makes my world colorful.
Make it safe & keep the rubber side down.
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve let y’all into the woodshop at work. We’ve been building the “simple bench”. If you’ve been reading this blog long, you know I love building benches – butterfly benches, green benches, small benches and long benches. My boys have been working off this pattern:
And I give them lots of flexibility in said pattern. We started with three 3 foot lengths of 1×12 stock. The students then cut their bench seats to any length as I rip the rest of the stock into 3 1/2″ strips for the aprons and 5 1/2″ strips for legs. Then, they cut their aprons and legs to length as I rip the seat to finished width. The left over stock from that rip becomes the stretcher. A few bridle joints (I think that’s what they are) and we have ourselves a rock solid base.
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It’s taken nearly five weeks to cut and assemble the benches (~25 hrs of classtime). Next week, the students will be able to either stain or paint their work. That should take less time – maybe a day or two. I’m expecting this project to be complete by the time report cards come out.
Make it safe & keep the rubber side down.
Dadoes are much easier to cut when you use two bench hooks….
You can even chisel out the waste right there. My students are having such success using bench hooks, knee height workbenches and the tool chest I’m reconsidering my thoughts on bigger workbenches. I’d like a better assembly table, but it ain’t nothing if I don’t have it.
The kids are killing the simple bench project – in-progress pics coming soon.
WSC Designs