6

The Woodworking Program

Overview

One of the unique aspects of our curriculum is that it reaches students at more than one level. These levels are often summarized as “head, heart, and hands” and “thinking, willing, and feeling.” By carefully integrating a rich, developmentally appropriate curriculum success in one subject leads to growth in seemingly unrelated areas of life. The inclusion of woodworking is a prime example. Woodworking encourages students to reach deep within themselves for unused and undiscovered skills and capacities. These new capacities are then also available for other aspects of life.

MySpace and Facebook

Nothing is private on the Web. College admission staff and employers check the Web to see how candidates represent themselves online. Students need frequent reminders that sharing personal information carries risks and that indiscretions now can come back to haunt them later in life.

Carving a wooden spoon or spatula

The sixth grade builds upon skills learned the previous year by tackling the far more difficult convex surfaces of spoons, sporks, and spatulas.

Students chose their own wood and develop a unique design that takes the inherent challenges of their wood selection into consideration.

Tools used include carving knives, gouges, mallets, chisels, clamps, vices, rasps, rittlers, and sandpaper.

The projects are finished using a natural oil and classic hand polishing techniques.