20 Percent project working with ribbons

I saw this necklace on Pinterest and liked how the creator uses ribbon with beading. I went to the store and picked up some blue ribbon and a few fish pendants and decided to make my friend a birthday present. I fist just tied the ribbon to the fixings and put pendants on it but that didn't look very nice so I took it apart and tried to add some chain work into the design. That looked better but still not quite what I wanted. So I tried twirling the ribbon and chain and came up with this final design.

This Pinterest page inspired my design.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/120386320/heart-pendant-pink-and-purple-bead-and?utm_campaign=Share&utm_medium=PageTools&utm_source=Pinterest


You can find more of the resources I've gathered through my Pin Board on Pinterest:

Follow Amanda Bevers's board jewelry making on Pinterest.

20% Project 2 necklaces

20 Percent Project: Jewelry Making

So I was extremely busy this week and only had time to do two necklaces. My favorite is the black one make of glass beads. I need to change the fixings on it though because it keeps coming undone. The other necklace was pretty easy to make I bought the chain from the craft store as well as the glass pendant and just put it together with some fixings. Next week I would like to work more with seed beads to make bracelets and I would also like to try making some bookmarks. I found a cool metal bookmark thing that I can decorate with beads. I think they will make great girt items and perhaps I can even sell some who knows! 

If you want to check out what resources I have been gathering please take a look at the Pinterest widget at the bottom of this post. :)

Follow Amanda Bevers's board jewelry making on Pinterest.

More Experimentation With Beading 20% Project

More Experimentation With Beading 20% Project

This week I went out to Michael's with some coupons and bought some new beads, fixings, and wire. I discovered that the stretchy elastic only works for bracelets on necklaces the weight of the beads and the necklace pendant tends to pull the elastic stretching and exposing the clear material in an unattractive way. The previous necklace I made I used some thin left over wire my dad had around the garage but that has run out so I researched online to see what the best wires were to use for beaded necklaces. 

This is what I found:

"Tiger Tail"-A flexible beading wire made out of strands of metal. Comes in many different colors and thicknesses. This is the one I decided to try out based on some advice online and from the sales clerk at Michaels.

However there are many other styles of beading string and wire materials this website provides a detailed description of some of these various materials including: Silk, Nylon, and Monofilament. Check it out for yourselves at: Learn About Bead Stringing Materials on About.com

Here are photos of my creations using the flexible metal wire.

For a look at some of the resources I have been gathering please visit my Pinterest Jewelry Making board via the link below:

Follow Amanda Bevers's board jewelry making on Pinterest.

Guest Speaker Ben Nakamura on Classroom Management

Guest Speaker: Ben Nakamura on Classroom Management

Ben Nakamura Principal of North Network Juvenile Court and Community Schools visited our single subject credential program class to teach us about classroom management. I was extremely impressed by his presentation and the classroom management techniques he introduced to us.

He started his presentation by telling a story about a boy raised by a mom with mental problems addicted to heroin and an ex-gangster father. His mother died of overdose and was found alone dead in a ditch one day. He was sent to live with his father the ex-gangster who regularly beat and abused him. At the end of the story Mr.Nakamura revealed that this was his story. We were all hooked and dialed in to his every word after that.

One of his presentation slides featured a very interesting and thought provoking quote:

“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.”
― Haim G. Ginott, Teacher and Child: A Book for Parents and Teachers

The part of this quote that speaks to me the most was the phrase “it is my response,” because that is the ultimate truth. It is up to me, the teacher, to create the safe, inviting, and fun learning environment I want. It is up to me to build lasting relationships of trust and understanding with my students. It is up to me to determine how best to help my students participate and learn. Mr. Nakamura speaks on this topic as well explaining that classroom management is up to us. It doesn't matter what kind of class we have or who the students are ultimately it is up to us to create the classroom atmosphere we are looking for.
Mr. Nakamura taught us the ABC’s of student’s needs based seemingly on Bloom’s taxonomy of needs:

Autonomy,

Belonging,

Competence.

He also taught us the 2 X 10 method which is taking two minutes out of every day for ten consecutive days to talk with a problem student in an informal and conversational manner appealing to their interests. Mr.Nakamura explains that this strategy will help build a relationship between you and the student that will hopefully prevent any major behavioral problems from arising in class in the future. I like this strategy because it allows me to get to know more about my students while at the same time preventing issues from occurring. My personal classroom management plans revolve around the idea of prevention over discipline.

Mr. Nakamura also gave us some great advice about interviewing for teaching positions. He said that his interviewing process involves giving teachers varied scenarios and asking them how they would handle the situations presented in the scenarios. Then if the teachers make it past that round of interviewing he gives them thirty minutes to prepare a lesson in the subject they are interviewing for. 

To help prepare us for this type of interview process while at the same time teaching us more about classroom management Mr. Nakamura passed out sample scenarios and asked us what we would do if this should happen to us. My groups scenario was about a boy named Cameron who refused to do the five minute warm-up exercise each day. Instead he would play around with other things in the class. When approached by the teacher he would respond rudely with, “Why won’t you just leave me alone you jerk!” When called upon to share my response I said that I would try the 2X10 strategy in order to try and build a stronger more positive relationship with the student and that I would also take a close look at my warm up exercise and see if I can design a more engaging and interesting exercise that might catch more of Cameron’s interest. I felt pretty good about my response and Mr. Nakamura said that I had a great response and that he had nothing to add. His response pleased me and told me that I was on the right track to having strong positive classroom management strategies.

20% Project Jewelry Making: Beading

Beading

Below are some photos of some beaded jewelry I made. I tried experimenting with different shapes and sizes, colors, and types of beads. Most of these beads are just some cheap simple plastic ones but I think they look pretty good. 

I used larger beads because they are easiest to work with. I played around with different sizes of the elastic cording going off of a few websites I researched. 

Cording Sizes and Info Website

I went ahead and bought the .5mm and .7mm clear elastic cording that they said was the two most common sizes.

My first jewelry set.

20% Project Jewelry Making: Step One Tools

Jewelry Making Tools: The Basics

1.  Wire Cutters
2. Round Nose Pliers
3. Chain Nose Pliers
4. Flat Nose Pliers
5. Crimp Tool

Recommended Extras:
Bead Stoppers

Here is a photo of the tools I bought and will be working with. In addition to the suggested tools I got a seed bead scooper, a bead reamer and this very thin and pointed tweezer like tool I don't know the name of. Most of these tools came in a nice little set I got at Michaels on sale. I plan on trying them out this weekend. :)

Please check out my Pinterest Board on Jewelry Making to see some of the sources I looked into to learn more about what tools to use and how.

Also here is a short video I found quickly going over some of the more common tools and their uses.






Visit Amanda's profile on Pinterest. Silver Jewelry's pin on Pinterest.

20% Project. Learning To Make and Sell Jewelry

20% Project. Learning To Make and Sell Jewelry

As a part of my credential program we are required to show our mastery of technology and our abilities to use it to learn and share by participating in an assignment called the 20% project. This project is based on practices that successful progressive companies like GOOGLE implement. These companies give their employees time to work on a project or idea that is all their own. This often leads to the invention of new innovative products and procedures. For my project I have decided to engage in a creative activity I have always wished I had more time to engage in and learn about, jewelry making. 

My goals:

1. Learn what tools and materials I will need to make jewelry.

2. Find interesting designs to try and recreate myself.

3. Make several different types and styles of jewelry.

4. Find out where and how I can sell my jewelry.

5. Put my jewelry up for sale. 

Stretch Goals:

1. Come up with my own style or design.

2. Create a how to video explaining how to create the new design I came up with.