Student Work

As some of my faithful readers know, I’ve been going through my house and purging in order to put our house on the market later this spring and move. This month I decided to attack my home office and my beading area, as well as continue to weed out our storage area downstairs.

I have tons of files from developing a curriculum that dates back to 2004. I am also a saver, not a hoarder, but an organized saver. My files are all organized and when we got a new Amish-made desk for my office several years ago, my files were lightly purged then. But, I need to do more. And, I have a habit of making piles on my desk. I know what’s in each pile but the paper in the piles needs to be gone through and filed or put in the garbage. Some of my paper piles are also due to finishing a second graduate degree in late 2018. I know I have to cleanout.

I am against “staging” a house for sale, but clutter or piles of junk or knickknacks (whatever you want to call all the extra things we have) definitely need to be dealt with. My goal is that by next week my desk will be free of piles, free of photos, and have plenty of free space. But, I’m getting off subject now.

When I started going through my files yesterday, I came across some student work from 2016. They were measurement worksheets from a unit I did on amaryllis bulbs for three sections of third grade (roughly 75 students) at one of our local elementary schools. I also did the unit with garden club students the same year, and all sections of fourth-grade students at another elementary school (75 more students) the following year. Most of these students are in high school now. A few are seniors (if they were in the garden club as a fifth-grader that year). The students planted bulbs and then took measurements on the designated dates. They went home with their parents during spring conferences. It was a great project and all due to another parent who worked at our local ACE Hardware distribution center. I was so grateful!

Looking at their work (and mine) brought back many great memories.

All photos are from my Amaryllis Data Project Files © Carol Labuzzetta, 2016.

There is no permission to copy in any form.

Ultimately, I ended up compiling graphs from each third-grade classroom on the growth of the bulbs by entering the data collected by students. It was a fun and useful basic measurement assignment at the elementary level. Even today, I find that students do not have adept ability to manipulate common measurements (such as 1 inch = 2.5 cm or 5cc per teaspoon). I’d like to get back to using that useful knowledge. And, that is, in part, what this project was about.

I wonder what other treasures I’ll find as I clean out my files and closets!

Do you keep any past work from your students?