hey Jonathan here I teach high school woodshop and do tree work on the
weekends we mill our own lumber and in this video I'm gonna go over five
essential hacks to be a happy woodshop teacher these have actually taken me a
long time to figure out but these five tricks really help make teaching
woodshop that much easier and the students that much safer so stay tuned in
this video and I'll go over those five different tricks and I'd love to hear
your comments down below
trick number one is have them build a notebook that is a very first project
this is a five by seven double ring notebook they tear off that cardboard
cover and then they draw exactly the dimensions of all those holes so they
use tapes and they realize tapes aren't that accurate so then they go to
calipers and they get a really good drawing I actually make this wooden
cover out of eighth inch plywood really inexpensive but if you don't have a
laser cutter you could do this by hand and by hand I've done it that way too we
actually drilled the holes and then we use some off those really small little
files to file the rectangular holes so this project is really all about
measurement layout attention to detail but the most important thing it's
personalized so they have their name engraved on it so nobody could borrow
anybody else's notebook so it's easy to keep track of where they are and they
small so they always have them with them so before I go over any lesson I make
sure everybody has this wooden notebook out that they're taking a few notes down
sketching in it and then they take it out in the shop with them so that they
don't have to ask me a million questions in the shop I just say well look in your
notebook and it fits right in their pocket so this notebook is really
streamlined a lot of unnecessary questions from the students
so that's hack number one okay here's hack number two you this one
takes a while to figure out but the key is you need to make a cool project for
the custodian who cleans your room so really the first thing you want to do is
make a cool project give it to that custodian and then ask if they could
just drop off the excess paper towel from the paper towel racks in your room
and then you want these paper towels all over the classroom wherever there's a
glue bottle there should be a roll of paper towel near there I know it seems
hard hard to believe that somebody won't walk over to get the paper towels but if
they are right there your shops is that much cleaner
number one is the notebook number two is get these paper towels from the
custodian and have them stacked all over the room
wherever there's going to be glue or any sort of cleanup hack number three you
have a nice chisel set lock them up put them far and away
you don't want chisels too accessible in the classroom almost every injury I've
had it's been a chisel in between fingers so I'm not saying not to teach
chisels chisel use or handwork but that's certainly not where you start
these need to be in a lockbox and gone over really slowly wherever you can use
a scraper you want to use a scraper it's really
hard to injure yourself with the scraper you're pulling it lays the grain down
flatter they have these really replaceable blades that you could buy by
the hundreds and then throw them away every term and replace the blades so I
have these wood scrapers everywhere for getting off excess glue getting things
flush wheezy scrapers a ton and then the chisels are really kind of secondary I
really don't like any scraping with the chisel and you know if the chisels are
out that we use the screwdrivers pry bars I don't know anything you could
think of you're not supposed to use a chisel for it'll be used for and these
scrapers are really perfect for scraping and they're hard to use for anything
else so I highly recommend a lot of scrapers out with replaceable blades and
compare here's Hawk number four have a spreadsheet on every project built you
could really tell administration and parents how important spreadsheets are
how many how much technical expertise that students are getting and more
importantly it keeps them in the classroom for morning so you could get
some paperwork done so every project has a spreadsheet this is a wooden puzzle
block I always have whatever parts you use in it the materials the thickness of
width the length the area I have them creating equations so equals
width times length volumes and equation how many board feet it is and then the
cost of a board foot it is really important to note as well that materials
are not free and by creating a spreadsheet it really helps a lot so
every project has a spreadsheet and a drawing in a notebook so that's number
four and it really it's a good skill to have for any student as well number five
by this fastcap kill kiss drill organize their system this is the greatest thing
ever I don't know why students cannot keep drill bits organized but it's
guaranteed that they will not stay organized so I buy this drill bit
organizer I might buy one of these every two years or so the first thing I do is
I take one bit out of every single one and I put them in a wood block and I
keep in my wood room so I always have a drill bit mine are always organized in
their sharp and then the students always put these back so you could get this
from fastcap online it might seem expensive but if you're a woodshop
teacher this is possibly the greatest invention ever otherwise students just
walk around class asking you where's the 5/16 bit again and again I've been top
tricks or hacks for a high school woodshop number one have a little
notebook that will fit in your pocket that they build themselves that they
have ownership of number two that you get excess paper towels everywhere you
see paper towels up over there number three trying to minimize chisel use and
use scrapers number four have them create spreadsheets of parts and
materials and number five get the fastcap kiss drill bit organizer it
seems small but when you're teaching high school woodshop it's the small
things that are the big things so hopefully you enjoyed this video and
if you did please hit subscribe I'd love to hear your comments down below thanks
for watching
you