The thought of a young child working with hammers and nails can be enough to frighten any adult from wanting to allow children to participate in a woodworking project. The truth is that children of all ages will truly love building their own project. This can be done safely and as a family project with adult supervision and by educating the children on tool safety. Teachers will love the educational benefits of woodworking. Parents will love the undeniable closeness woodworking can bring from a great day of family time.

When working on woodworking projects, children will learn eye-hand coordination, dexterity and fine motor skills, conceptualization, language development, and increased understanding or awareness of everything around them. They will strengthen their imagination, independence and self-esteem, and creative thinking skills. They will learn classification and matching, properties and textures, sorting, and how to cooperate with others. Another benefit is by pounding a nail with a hammer, children and adults alike can relieve a little stress. Woodworking is a great, fun way to learn for those of all ages.

When introducing woodworking to young children you should consider woodshop safety first. This can be done simply by educating children on the tools. Explain what each tool is, what it is used for, and the dangers involved. For instance, a hammer hurts if you miss the nail and accidentally hit a finger. Also provide them with protective eyewear. Another tip is to start slow, especially with young children, and this can be done by starting with introducing simple wood pieces and a piece of sandpaper. Help kids get comfortable with the look and feel of tools and gradually work them into the actual building portion.

Before getting started in woodworking you will need to set up a children’s workshop. For your woodworking workshop you will need a variety of woods, tools, and other crafting items. One of the easiest woods to work with is balsa wood. It is perfect for small projects and it is lightweight and soft. It comes in varieties of blocks, rods, and sheets and can be cut with a crafting knife or a small hand saw. For those children that have no idea what they intend on making you can find economical bags which hold a variety of shapes and sizes.

You will also need glue; either wood glue or regular will be fine. Brad nails are small nails that will add strength to the joints of the project. A small hand saw or crafting knife will be needed as well. A carpenter’s square will help to draw straight edges, creating angles, and measuring. A tape measure will help with measuring too, so having one of those will be a great addition. Sandpaper will be needed to sand the roughness of the wood which will make it easier to paint and you may want to add woodsies so the children can use them to add decorative elements to their project. Finally you will need craft or acrylic paint for finishing as well as some type of sponge or paint brushes for them to apply it.

Once you have educated and prepared the children for wood working as well as providing them with a child sized woodshop you can decide together what you would like to build with wood. There are many simple woodworking projects for children which can be found in complete woodworking kits which include all the necessary wood or you can find free woodworking instructional guides in which you may need to purchase the wood separately. You may also want to use salvaged wood for building projects. Bird houses, counting frames, garden tool boxes, picture frames and wooden stools are some of the easiest projects for children to start out with. They are very simple to construct and require very basic wood building materials. Once the child develops more wood working experience, they can move on to bigger wood working projects such as helping to construct their own wood bedroom furniture, wood doll houses, wood shelves, wood play houses for backyard activities, wood tree houses, airplanes of balsa wood, wood derby cars, and much, much more.

Building something from scratch makes a person feel accomplished. Children will love having something to show for their efforts and they should be encouraged to display their creativity proudly. Simply by introducing a child to woodworking and getting them started they can develop a life long love for design and construction. If your child develops a passion for this type of work and decide it’s a path they would like to take they may even be able to qualify for woodworking scholarships. Starting them now can set them on their way to a promising future and a profitable income.