The center I taught at for 21 years always had a workbench and activities available. Hammering a slice of a large tree trunk was a favorite and we used the same slice of wood the whole time I was there! Helping children develop tool usage skills is a process so we typically started with hammering golf tees into styrofoam pieces retrieved from packaging and into pumpkins - also super fun! We taught children safety skills as we went along such as wearing safety goggles, how to hold tools, using clothespins to hold nails in place, etc.
Additional activities could involve other tools like screwdrivers, hand drills.. ( keeping in mind need for adult supervision and the self-control skills of the children in your group). These activities are great when done on the playground, too where the noise is less bothersome to the group.
In recent years, we used a "maker" approach to our workbench and often placed bits of wood, string, bottle caps, along with tools to see what interesting constructions children would make.
Asking parents to provide tree slices from branches (especially when they had storm damage to clean up) gave us really interesting bases to make wood collages with and could be used for hammering as well.
A nature walk looking at trees and gathering branches would be interesting as well and then comparing it to manufactured wood products. So many directions to go in - enjoy!
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Debora Jones
Retired Master Teacher
Burrier Child Development Center
Eastern Kentucky University
Berea KY
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-18-2019 08:16 AM
From: Gina James
Subject: Working With Wood
Any good ideas on working with wood and/or planning a mini unit about wood with four year olds?
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Gina James
Teacher
NYCDOE
Williston Pk NY
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