Displaying articles for: October 2009
Blog #2
At what age are children ready to learn woodworking?
I took my niece and nephew to several of the Home Depot Kids’ workshops when they were ages 8 and 10 respectively. They both loved making the pre-cut, ready-to-glue-and-nail-together projects. They always needed at least some help from me, but they did most of the assembly themselves.
While at Home Depot, I watched children 5 or 6 years old, but it seemed to me that their parents were doing the majority of the assembly.
Although I applaud Home Depot for providing the Kids’ Workshop for introducing children to woodworking, my focus for this blog will go well beyond assembling pre-cut kits. Instead, I will share my experiences teaching children the skills needed to make projects starting with standard-size wood boards and doing all the necessary operations, from measuring, sawing, drilling, and fastening with minimum help from an adult.
Getting back to the subject of age, the youngest student who has taken my woodworking class was just under 9 years old. I feel that is about the youngest age that most children have the developmental skills needed to accomplish the lessons. Younger kids find the reading skills, manual skills and even the strength (for example when using the coping saw) to be just too difficult.
Also, children can be overwhelmed by the size and especially the noise of machines. The solution here is simply to start at the basics, slowly working your way up from skill to skill and from tool to tool on a gradient.
I used this gradient approach when setting up my entire woodworking program. Because my background is in teaching, I make sure students know the definitions of the words used and that there is a balance between the reading instruction and the hands-on experiences.
The first lesson is shop safety. It is irresponsible for anyone to start children working in a shop without first making sure they know what is expected of them and what they need to do to stay safe.
I welcome reader comments. I hope you will share your valuable insights and experiences teaching woodworking to young people.
My next blog will be on shop safety – the first step in preparing kids for a successful woodshop experience.
Paul Meisel
WOOD Online Blogger
Specialty: Woodworking with Children
Meisel Hardware Specialties
Blog #1
Woodworking with children
Hi, my name is Paul Meisel. My blog is about teaching woodworking to young people.
If you are wondering why this might be an important subject, or why you should care at all, please read on.
If woodworking is your hobby, I assume you find it enjoyable. I know I do! How did you become involved with this hobby? Did you learn about it in high school shop class? Did you have a relative or friend take you under his or her wing and get you started? Do you feel grateful that you have such a hobby?
Shop classes have been dropped from most high schools so kids today have limited exposure to woodworking. If we, as woodworkers, feel the slightest responsibility to our nation’s children, if we feel any obligation to return the favor of the person who got us interested in woodworking, we need to take an active role in introducing this great hobby to children.
But where do you start? At what age are children ready? What about safety? What would you say to kids the first day you invite them into your shop? What will you have them do the first day?
These are just some of the questions to be explored in this blog. I hope those of you who have experience working with kids will share your experiences.
My first job after college was an industrial arts instructor. I taught woodworking for ten years at the public school level (grades 7 – 9). Later I started a company developing project plans for the home hobbyist woodworker. For the last three years, I have volunteered as a part time woodworking teacher at a small private school near my home.
In this blog, I will be sharing my recent experiences teaching woodworking to students ages 9 – 15.
Here are some of my students with their first nailing project. To make a name plaque, students pound up to 200 wire nails. I believe that repetitive practice is a key to mastery.
Paul Meisel
WOOD Online Blogger
Specialty: Woodworking with Children
Meisel Hardware Specialties
