This Week In the Classroom: New Tools and Old Tools In the Shop (It’s Not What You Think)

Just got the best new, free tool in the woodshop today.  It looks like this: It’s a printed out (thank god the paper-waster nazi wasn’t around) version of the ENTIRE trilogy of Mission Furniture and How to Make It published by Project Gutenberg via Popular Mechanics from 1910.  The students flip through it and findContinue reading “This Week In the Classroom: New Tools and Old Tools In the Shop (It’s Not What You Think)”

This Week In the Classroom: Progress in 2011

What a  student-driven,  project-based learning  can result in: The joints look remarkably tight in this photo, and the stain quite even, but don’t be fooled.  This is about as rough as work gets.  (Not including the Clock, which may be finished and rejected this week…)   It was the first attempt at an entire project likeContinue reading “This Week In the Classroom: Progress in 2011”

This Week In the Classroom: Curriculum Plan for Spring of 2011

Good week for struggles and not-quite-there-yets in the woodshop this week.  Three projects left the floor complete.  The first, chalkboard that has been wind-blown, vandalized and otherwise destroyed three times.  We’ll see if it sticks this time. The other two projects I failed to take a picture of.  On Mon or Tues, I’ll put upContinue reading “This Week In the Classroom: Curriculum Plan for Spring of 2011”

This Week In the Classroom: To Sand or Not to Sand…

Returned to school last week with so much to do and catch up on (I did make it to Boston and missed a long day full of meetings and schedule-making).  I had several gorgeous “woodworking-as-the-way” moments, only one of which I’ll share.  One of my neurologically different students asked to meet the teacher he wasContinue reading “This Week In the Classroom: To Sand or Not to Sand…”

This Week in the Classroom: The Endtable Project

This fall, I became a full-time woodshop-esque teacher in a private school for students with neurological differences. It’s been a wild ride. My first order of business has been to outfit and carve out a woodshop on the campus. As we don’t have much access to electricity, I’ve been concentrating on hand tool mastery andContinue reading “This Week in the Classroom: The Endtable Project”