Celebration Central

This week was full of so many celebrations rather than frustrations!!! There were a few frustrations, but we definitely turned those frowns upside down. I can tell each week that the students are getting more comfortable with the machines. The students now typically only have questions about the pattern instructions rather than fixing their machine. To me, this is the biggest celebration of all!

This week, my students have to feature another student's blog in their post. So, in this post, I want to feature one student from each class that had such a great week of sewing...which is very hard to pick because everyone had a fantastic week.

1st period: My student Andrew accomplished so much this week! He finished his hoodie! Thursday during 1st period I was helping a student and someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and Andrew was standing there. He didn't say anything, he just stood there. I asked if he had a question and was very confused about why he wasn't saying anything. Then it hit me, he was wearing the hoodie that he had just finished! I exploded with excitement and so did other students in the class!!! I cannot express how much joy I felt when I realized what was going on. Here is what he had to say about it --> Super Epic Fashion Blog

Here is a picture of the hoodie!

You can see just how proud of Andrew I am and more pictures on my Instagram @OnFireForFACS and on my twitter @_Mrs_Hawk_

2nd period: My student Jahred had a very up and down week. He has been sewing a fox backpack since the end of November and has gotten very frustrated because some of the instructions contradicted each other and the wording didn't always make sense. He started the week off so frustrated because he was having a hard time with the sewing machine and the instructions. I did my best to help him, but honestly, there were instructions that threw me for a loop. We were able to find another way to go about doing what we thought the instructions were asking us to do. Once he completed the backpack he was so excited. I felt like I had done my job as a teacher when I saw this posted in his blog "This is the most excited I have ever been about an assignment and I can't wait for it to be finished." To see more about Jahred's experience and his blogging partner Taylor, check out their blog --> Dream Big Fashion

The final product of the fox backpack!

Stay tuned because I will be featuring more students as we continue on this journey of blogging. In the meantime, if you would like to see what all of my students are up to check out all of my student's blogs on the right-hand side of this blog!

Zipper Pouch and More

Update on the "big reveal": The way that everything fell I had to change the blog reveal date. This Wednesday we will be done sewing accessories (more on that to come in future posts). So, it made sense to use the rest of the week on blogs.

Zipper Pouch: My students have been creating different sewing projects to prepare themselves to be able to sew from a pattern on their own. This project was no different. Main goal- Sewing in a zipper! This was the first time that I had an entire class learn how to sew in a zipper...I didn't even learn how to sew in a zipper in my high school fashion class. It was very successful!

The students went into the project very hopeful. Some quickly made it through the project and helped others, some made it through by the due date, some struggled through and had to come in on their time to finish. Either way, they all made it through and all the zipper pouches looked great!

This is one side of the pouch that has been sewed on one side of the zipper

We started off watching a video of instructions. We watched one step a day. I would stop the video at pivotal parts and go into in-depth explanation or point out small details. I think that helped them understand a little bit better.

Frustrations: My students may feel differently, but I think one of the biggest frustrations has been the zippers. Once the students sew all of the fabric on to create the pouch, they have to turn it right side out. This means that they have to unzip the zipper on the wrong side. Once we had a few students have this issue I turned the frustration into a celebration simply by having the students unzip the zipper halfway.

January Update: The post above I actually started in December, but one day turned into two and next thing I knew it was January and I still hadn't posted on my blog.

 

My students and I are now going to make it a weekly habit to blog. We will all blog every Friday. Each week they will have to have certain elements in their blog to get full points. Today we started out easy. Students needed to write a minimum of two paragraphs about what they are doing and insert two pictures in. I told my students that everything I have them do, I will do on my blog as well. So, stay tuned because we are going to try and do something different each post. If you would like to check out my student's blogs, I have linked them on the right-hand side of my blog.

To see more into my classroom follow @OnFireForFACS on Instagram and @_Mrs_Hawk_ on Twitter!