Adding tools to their tool belts
Woodland Middle School eighth-grader Wyatt Hernandez receives a building lesson as Greenstone Homes construction superintendent Shari Hohenberger pencils ticks on a tape measure Tuesday morning. Wyatt and his classmates are learning all about the housing market right now, including how prices are calculated and how new homes are built.
DEVIN WEEKS/Press
Eighth-grader Morgan Dalton inspects the interior construction of a home in progress on Descartes Drive in Coeur d'Alene Place on Tuesday morning. He and his classmates are learning all about the housing industry.
Greenstone Homes customer service specialist Jason Blessinger prepares Woodland Middle Schoolers for a tour of a newly constructed home during a field trip Tuesday morning.
Julia Cosson, Woodland Middle School seventh-grader, slips on booties as she and her classmates go on a tour in a brand new Greenstone Homes house Tuesday morning.
COEUR d’ALENE — Holding up the blueprints for a Coeur d'Alene Place build in progress, Jason Blessinger made a fitting point as he spoke to visiting Woodland Middle School students.
"This is like life right now," he said Tuesday morning. "How can you get anywhere without a plan set?"
Blessinger, a customer service specialist at Greenstone Homes, drove home another concept by analogizing the tool belts worn on the job with the tool belts worn through life.
"Everything you’re learning — even if it’s a drag, and you’re not really into it — try to learn it, try to grasp it, try to have a good idea as to how this works, because that’s a tool that you’re putting in your tool belt that I promise you you’re going to use later, especially fractions," Blessinger told them.
Woodland teacher Gretchen Bell added that these skills will launch students into places they want to go.
"All of you have some gifts you can offer," she said.
Bell and colleague Leisa Wick teach an integrated seventh-eighth grade math and language arts course through the Woodland Boost model, which provides real-world learning for students who thrive with a little extra support.
Right now, these students are learning about homes and the housing market. During their walking field trip to job sites with Greenstone representatives, they learned about pricing, square footage, jobs required to build one house, variations in markets across the U.S., and more.
"I think it was really interesting in how there's a bunch of different jobs that they have," eighth-grader Morgan Dalton said. "There's people that put in the insulation, the concrete."
Seventh-grader Julia Cosson made a few astute observations.
"Something I found really interesting is there are a lot of steps to build the houses. There's a lot of people to help build," she said. "Houses can cost a lot of money."
Julia said she really enjoys being in this class in general.
"They teach us stuff that we will actually use out in the real world, instead of fake examples we wouldn't use very much," she said. "Here, we learned prices of houses and how we use it in real life."
