Woodworking with Children

​Children learn by doing.  They learn by communicating, both speaking and listening.  They learn by using their hands.  Woodworking provides all of these.  

One of my great joys is to share the fun experience of working with wood.  We start by talking about safety, and what we are going to make.  We talk about how we will smooth the wooden figure by sanding until the edges are as smooth as our cheeks.  We put on our safety glasses, then we begin cutting out the figure, my hands over theirs, until just before we’re done, when they do the last bit of cutting all by themselves!  We talk about how it’s ok if we cut outside the lines because no two things in nature look the same, and this figure will be uniquely theirs. They sand and paint and decorate their wood project, and the pride starts setting in…I MADE THIS!  And they don’t even realize they’ve been learning.