Handicrafts: Woodworking

In the area of handicrafts, the plan is to concentrate for the next year on woodworking with our 5 year old son. We are going to try out the free workshops offered by businesses in our area. Here are the options for the next few months.

Lowe's Build & Grow

Jewelry Organizer

Saturday Feb 13, 2010

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM



LoweBot

Saturday Feb 27, 2010

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM

Kid Workshops at Home Depot

Handicrafts

From Ambleside Online:

The handicrafts Charlotte Mason wanted children to do were more than arts and crafts projects - she wanted children to put time into creating something of real use, and she expected them to care enough about the project to take pains to produce well-done work. Making (and mending) real things like rugs, baskets, ceramic pots, doll furniture, and sewing on lost buttons, hemming pillowcases, cooking, woodworking, cross stitching and fixing plumbing were what she had in mind rather than worthless busy art projects that end up thrown away. She saw this as a way to encourage a productive will and develop skills that can be carried into adulthood, and perhaps a way to reveal and exercise talents or callings. Afternoons were left free for children to work on such projects.

I'm starting to look at our 2010-2011 school year and putting together our education plan. One thing that I felt compelled to do this year was "Arts and Crafts" which generally took a lot of time to get together and then ended up in the trash - after a picture of our work, of course.

My children LOVE doing "crafts". My 5 year-old son has recently started using his own toolbox to build things out of wood, so we decided for the next year we'll concentrate on woodworking with him. For our 4 year-old daughter, I'm thinking about beading in addition to (for both) working with textiles - cutting and dying fabric as elementary sewing.