We’ve painted on wood, and made wood constructions with hot glue, but we still have loads of wood scraps hanging around, thanks to our never ending renovations.
One thing we’ve not done much of is traditional hammer and nails wood work, but when The Father Figure discovered a couple of old, small, hammers and put new handles on them… well we had to try them out!
Starting a nail isn’t easy, even for bigger hands, and there were one or two banged fingers and a bit of frustration but luckily no major injuries.
To make holding the nail a bit easier, and safer I drilled holes into some plastic bottle caps. Now the kids can pop the nail through the hole and hold the plastic lid, keeping their fingers away from the hammer.
Just make sure the hole in the bottle cap is big enough to fit the head of the nail through, or you can just add the bottle cap as part of your construction!
You can also use a clothes peg to hold on to bigger nails while you hammer them in.
And to finish it off I broke out a new packet of markers…. my kids love new markers almost as much as I do!
Have you ever done wood work with your kids?
Got any good tips for us?
lovely pics……….:)
Wonderful creations and much concentration there! Can’t wait until my twins are old enough for wood play!
I love the addition of the caps! Going to add that to our woodworking too. Thanks for sharing on It’s Playtime.
My children were very interested in using real tools recently so I let them have at it. I even let them use a saw and they did a great job. Check out what they made over at the GrowingPlay blog – http://www.growingplay.blogspot.com/2011/12/build-your-own-balance-beam.html
Check out some of the things I have made at work both with and for the children at our kindergarten nursery Free Rangers Bath in the South West of England, using only reclaimed wood, a few hand tools and a couple of screws and nails!
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.544703225857.41258.264600382&type=3
I have done a lot of woodwork with youg children, 3-7years old. We have made so many things based on their imaginations from small wooden animals to swords and shields to abstract things that only the children can identify what they supposedly are. One great discovery that I have made good use of for 15 years or more is the file. We have files and rasps of all shaped and roughnesses and it is truly amazing what can be done with files. And they are pretty safe too!!!