They were fitting gifts for teacher appreciation - items from the hands and hearts of their students.
Engineering students in middle school teacher Jason Dewey’s classes made pots for small plants, and wooden candy dispensers. They spent Monday and Tuesday handing them out to teachers at Windsor Central Middle School.
“It was nice to give back to the teachers for all they’ve done for us,” said student Layla Blodgett.
“They put a whole year of effort into us so we can spend time to give something back,” said student Ruby Hans.
The students spent three weeks manufacturing the gifts. Fitting for the creation of teacher gifts, the process of making them taught the students lessons.
“I thought it would be fun and challenging because it’s so many teachers. I feel like it teaches you trial and error and how to get through things when they’re really hard,” said student Berkley Ingram.
“Measure twice,” said student Logan Oakley.
“We learned from our mistakes with the stickers and the holes in the candy dispensers. It was kind of like an assembly line, one person would pin a hole, the other would drill the hole,” said student Aubrey Decker.
The students may have had to go through rounds of revisions, but the teachers appreciated the final product.
“We don’t expect anything but that was above and beyond. The time they put into that as so nice. You could tell they put a lot of thought and time, and it was very much appreciated,” said 8th grade teacher Melissa Klumpp.
“They were fantastic. It was awesome,” said 8th grade teacher Colton Perry.
“The craftsmanship was very impressive,” said 8th grade teacher Cole Battaglini.
“I like how they incorporated what they learned in the classroom into the gifts,” said 8th grade teacher Daina Kocak.
The ambitious project forced students to perfect their process, which meant packing a lot of work into a short time frame.
“They really got into it. They really put in a lot of hard work. When they started it, I wasn’t sure we’d be able to do it, but we pulled it off,” said Mr. Dewey.