My goal this year is to implement projects into my classroom.  I believe project-based learning is a great method for students to learn.  It allows them to get away from the typical “lecture” style classroom and work with materials and ideas that they have not work with before.

So, this week I created a “Dream Bedroom” Project.  I have to give some credit to a Mrs. Voigt, who made the original template to this project.  Her link is here.  However, I modified this project quite a bit to create it to become a bit more detailed for my students.  The link can be found HERE.

The goal of the project is for students to be able their “Dream Bedroom” by using ratios, proportions, and scale.  The students were required to do the following:

• Find furnishing for their room with dimensions.
• Pick a size for their dream bedroom.
• Pick a scale for their drawing.
• Create proportions with the bedroom and furnishings.
• Draw the scaled bedroom.
• Keep a running expenses and running balances for all items.

My students completed this project last week.  I gave them three days in class to complete it, but I believe I could have used a fourth day, since this was one of the first projects they have done in my class.  I brought magazines from home and some ads from Walmart.  If I did it again, I would have collected more furniture magazines for the students, rather than the ads, since the ads did not have as many dimensions listed.  Pottery Barn was a great magazine to use!

To grade these items I used RubiStar which is AMAZING.  The rubric was easy to create and contained all the areas I needed to grade upon.

Enjoy!