Students wrap up their unit on measurement with a little project.
JAY – Jay High School shop teacher Dan Lemieux lives and teaches by the words written on the wall.

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand,” reads the poster in his office that he so often points to. He chips in a fourth line, “I teach it and know it forever.”

On Thursday afternoon, Lemieux continued a 15-year tradition that allows fourth-graders the opportunity not to listen and forget, but to see and do so they remember and understand forever.

For the past three weeks, fourth-graders have had inches and centimeters on the brain. As part of their massive unit on measurement, they’ve learned to use rulers to measure to within a sixteenth of an inch, they’ve crunched fractions, and they’ve worked on their estimating skills.

Finally, in Lemieux’s shop classroom, they got the chance to put their newly-learned skills to work, making wooden key racks that required them to measure and trace, pound and sand and as student Jacob Bessey noted, “test your brain.”

As a giant saw buzzed in the background, giggly students made faces from behind their safety glasses as others made faces of frustration as they sloughed the roughness from their pieces of wood with sandpaper.

“It is fun. Very fun,” said Miranda St. Pierre, taking a short break as she let the dark varnish dry on her key rack.

Lending a helping hand and more important, encouraging words, were high school seniors Shawn Jacques and Rachel Gagnon. Both remembered doing the project back in fourth grade, and Gagnon admitted she still has her key rack lying around.

“It’s better than just sitting in class,” she said of the hands-on learning. “I think they’re enjoying it. I still have mine so I guess I enjoyed it, too.”

Fourth-grade teacher Nancy Anctil said students have been abuzz with eagerness ever since they learned about the field trip to the high school. Many have older siblings who brought key racks home years ago.

“They were right on screech. They just couldn’t wait,” she said laughing. Knowing that they were going to apply what they learned in class to a project made them want to soak it up even more, she said.

“It’s hands-on so the kids love it. They like to leave with a product that they can have to show and share.”

The unit on measurement is important, Anctil explained, because students are tested on the subject in the math section of the Maine Educational Assessments. Students also are taught what sort of careers they can go into that use measuring skills.

It’s a fitting project and unit Lemieux pointed out, in a town where most of the people work with their hands. He said the project is crucial because students are learning skills they can use.

“It’s better learning when you’re having run,” said student Heather Theriault.

As Bessey put the finishing touches on his key rack, he admitted he was proud to take it home and was planning on giving it to his dad. His mom already has one, made by his big sister, Jordan, now an eighth-grader, back when she was a fourth-grader.
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