Project Updates

After having a couple of weeks to work on their projects, my students are coming along quite nicely on what they set out to accomplish. As they have been working on their projects, I am constantly asking them why they are doing what they are doing. I do this so that I know they understand each step in the process, and this also allows me to help with any confusion they may have. In their weekly blog posts, I ask them to reflect on what they did that week, and as an example, I am doing that myself.

I was challenged by the Director of Modern Learning to model to my students, a project of my own, the steps needed to complete the project, and reflections on the project. I chose to build a set of dog stairs for my 2 pugs. My oldest pug is 9 1/2 years old and my youngest is 7 1/2.  My 9 1/2 year old pug, she is a sweetheart, and with older age, she is having trouble jumping up and down off the sofa. In order for her to not injure herself, I thought, why not build a set of stairs to make it easier for her to get up onto the sofa she enjoys so much.


I started by measuring the height of the sofa, from floor to the top of the cushion, approximately 18 inches. I then did some research to see if anyone else had constructed 18 inch high dog stairs. Of course, someone has done this before, and I decided to use their template and replicate the set of stairs they made. You can see the plans here.

I measured out all of the cuts of the wood that I needed to make prior to doing any cutting. As my father told me when I was young, measure twice and cut once, so I did. I even measured a third time to make sure my markings were spot on.

I then cut all of the pieces of wood according to the template and nailed and glued them down according to the template. Some pictures, and I should have taken some before I got this far, and I plan to on my next project, to take more pictures sooner, and at more frequent time points.


The finished product:

Front                                                                              Back

Now, for some closer ups, and as you'll see, my cutting wasn't quite as straight as I thought it was. From this I learned that I should use a miter saw and not a hand held circular saw for more of the cuts.

                                                         Just a little off on this one, lol!

                                                         A little wood glue will fix this!

All in all, I would call it a successful build; however, I am going to try and put wood glue in the cracks, vise clamp it together, and compress the daylights out of it and see if I can't get everything to come together tightly.  Some take aways from this project: 1) I learned that pictures along the way would have been very helpful, and I need to take more of them at more frequent time points, 2) even though I had a template to go off of, the actual product will differ from what the pictures look like, 3) use more precise tools, such as a miter saw for more precise cuts, hand held tools run the risk of human error, and I could see this as the wood steps did not line up exactly with the cleats, 4) modeling a project for my students and empathizing with what they are going through on a daily basis is tiring! I had a great time constructing the stairs, and I hope my students are having just as much fun with their projects!