Month: November 2021
My most recent knitting update. It’s all in video format this time so please sit back and enjoy!
First off I’d like to say thank-you to Dalton for posting about Merlot. I was thinking of exploring that website, however after Dalton’s evaluation of the website I decided my time would be better spent on another one. I wanted to explore a website that I had never used before, so a few of them were out – OER Commons, TED Ed, Khan Academy, and Wiki Educator, but it still left me with a pretty extensive list to go from. I settle on Open Learn because I really liked the look of the website.
Continue readingIf you were to go back 30 years and look into a classroom what would you see? Even more importantly what would it look like in a staffroom or in the halls before school starts or at the end of the day? In some schools and with some teachers you may see some collaboration but for the most part there would not be a lot of sharing. For whatever reason teachers liked to keep things to themselves. Maybe they thought about the amount of time and effort they put into a lesson and didn’t want to give anyone else a short cut?
Continue readingIt has been awhile since I have done an update, and for good reason. I wanted to have something finished to show everyone, and I have finally done it. Before I share with you I should probably explain where I started, my purpose, and then finally the big reveal.
As you all presumably know I have been teaching myself to knit. It all started thanks to a book called “Fish out of Water” by Joanne Levy. In the book a boy wants to learn how to knit because he wants to make people socks just like his grandma. However, he takes a lot of slack from his friends, and his grandma for wanting to knit because “boys don’t knit.” I have been reading this book to both my 4/5 and 5/6 ELA classes and they are loving it. Many of them are annoyed by the stereotype that boys can’t knit and we have had several chats about this and other harmful stereotypes in society. I am getting ahead of myself because I decided that this “boy” aka me, was going to learn how to knit before I started reading my classes the book. I wanted to show them a real life example of going against the grain, and not listening to what others say.
So far it has been a really interesting journey of learning, talking with others, sharing, and working really hard to accomplish something that started out to be pretty difficult but ended up becoming something that I a proud of.
My journey started here:
I had to watch the videos several times, to try to actually figure out what she was doing. I found casting on pretty easy but everything after that was painstakingly slow and full of growing pains. Once I was pretty sure I wanted to start I headed to Michaels to purchase knitting needles and yarn, and there was my first mistake. In the video Davina (the instructor) talks about getting the correct sized needles as well as the right type of yarn to start learning with. I didn’t listen at all and bought what I wanted to buy. Of course when I got home, in all my excitement, I wanted to start immediately. AND…I failed right off the bat. The needles I purchased were to thin (5mm) and the yarn was also to small. I couldn’t see what I was supposed to be doing because everything was too tightly wound and close together. Oppps.
The journey back to Michaels
I had to go back and get the right size needles – now I was on a mission, I knew that I needed 9 mm or 10 mm needles and a thicker yarn. This time I got it right and came home with:
So that’s where I started. I have had great conversations with colleagues who have all offered to help. One in particular – Pat – showed me how I can sew in the tails of yarn. In the video below you will see what I mean.
The Big Reveal
The last time I made a post I was only about 8 inches into making my scarf and I can’t wait to show you the finished project. Please sit back and enjoy!
Thanks for watching!
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