Well, it’s a challenge to get kids on track early in the year and help them learn to regulate their emotions. A calm, happy, and fun classroom environment benefits everyone involved. I’ve created a classroom contract that might just be the solution you need. This is an interactive PDF for you to download and use.
Hello everyone! As 2025 progresses, I’m excited to share some updates about how I’ll be creating and sharing resources moving forward. I’ve decided to switch from Adobe to the Affinity Suite, which is a bit of a learning curve, but I’m really enjoying it! I’m also trying to use more open-source tools in my workflow, FreeCAD, OBS, Blender and others.
You’ll also (hopefully) see me blogging here more often. I’m stepping back from Facebook and X due to concerns on where these platforms are heading. So at the moment I’d love for you to connect with me on Bluesky: @mrsully.bsky.social.
To make it easier to share, I’m now using Buy Me a Coffee instead of Teachers Pay Teachers or Patreon. If you enjoy my work and want to support me, please visit: https://buymeacoffee.com/mrsully.
So hoping to have a productive year, I’ve never stopped making stuff, but I often forget to share it. Here’s to sharing more and building some new connections.
OK sometimes the simplest things can become the most painful. Finding simple A4 grid paper online took me to several commercial sites, sticking ads and cllickbait in my face and wasting my time behind paywalls. So I took a few minutes and made some of my own. A4/A3 5mm grid and isometric paper. Includes 10mm border and a simple titleblock. Send me request for any changes.
I saw a set of design icon stickers on a website and thought it was a great idea for a resource that could inspire students and to encourage more design thinking in class. I may also get students making their own in future classes.
This is a new cleaner design for a simple design cycle. I plan to use the empty sheet as a little brainstorming exercise with students at the start of each project. Nothing new, but a fresh start. Let me know if you think there could be any changes, I’m sure there are many ways to improve. Click the image to download a full A3 document.
Three images on each slide and students need to decide which is out of place and why. There are no right or wrong answers, but they need thoughtful reasons based on what they can see in the pictures.
So looking back at those remote learning days I have found two small tasks that are a little hard to explain. I remember being quite excited as I made them and thought, I was pretty clever (well I was stuck in the garage talking to myself for months).
Anyway both these little presentations have a task for students to go out into nature and think creativily. You could easily do both these as a very chill class activity. You could also use music in the slides.
Both tasks have students looking for shapes and patterns. The first is the old favourite clouds but the second has a little twist.
Once again use and share as you like.
During remote learning I made many small self contained creative tasks. I am in the process of cleaning them up and sharing them with my fellow teachers. Here are the first couple. There’s a simple rubrik included but these are probably better used as small formative activities. Once again use and change anyway you like.
One object 100 ways gets students to come up with interesting ideas on ways to use everyday items.
Organising Rules is the second one I’ve cleaned up. I remember making this as students went into isolation and were often confined to their room. Fun times…
Download One Object 100 Ways PowerPoint here
Here’s a useful little PowerPoint presentation that I’ve just cleaned up. Very useful task to start students on their path to product design. There are a lot of videos included (hence the largish file size) the reason I’ve not linked directly to the online streaming source is, I’ve found the these sort of links generally break (disappear) leaving you with a non functioning presentation within a few semesters. Just move the files to your own Google Drive or similar and relink them if you like.
But feel free to relink them to their original online sources.
A little while ago Chris Betcher posted how early in his classes he gets students to measure a selection of Lego bricks to build measuring skills. Inspired by this and the paper rulers you get in IKEA, I made this worksheet that I’m sharing. There is one metric and one in imperial… Oh and Lego feels like a little of both which is strange but there are reasons as to how this has occurred, some research will uncover those reasons.
You need to print directly from the file without any scaling and probably best not to photocopy them either, or the built-in rulers may get distorted.
This was at a stage where I had introduced the class to Onshape as our CAD software and needed them to start dimensioning and using constraints in their designs. I reqquired an object they could recreate using an accurate scale and I remembered Chris’s tweet about measuring Lego pieces. I gave each student this sheet, a pencil and the same 4×2 Lego brick, took them outside and had them hold the brick on the built-in grid/ruler and freehand draw it using the isometric grid including the dimensions they would need to recreate the same thing in our CAD software.
Finished 3D CAD files were printed with 3D printers, with the ultimate evidence of success being, do they connect and hold (clutch power) to official Lego bricks. I guess it’s a reverse engineering task. I have evolved the task to include four different Lego pieces that students attempt to measure and recreate.
The idea of having a self-contained worksheet developed a little from desperation. My usual students are not very well equipped, having no rulers, set squares, compasses, protractors or pencils. They have Chromebooks, which sadly the students don’t usually have a good grasp of how to use them. This combined with them being left at home, broken, flat or just generally a tool for distraction.
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