By the time my children can grasp a rattle, they want to grasp anything daddy does. This includes hammers to drills! Just this week I found my two year old carrying a pocket knife around the yard. And yikes it was opened, but thankfully he was carrying it around by the blade!
If there is a tool in the house, a boy will find it!
So I don't give pocket knives to 2 year olds, but I do let them learn to use a hammer. I give them an old stump as their base. The wood is softer because it is decaying and we don't HAVE to pull the nails if we don't want to. I make accessible some longer finishing nails and some small tack hammers. They have a ball doing this! And they get very good at making a nail go in straight. (This is the virtue of Industry!) I demonstrate driving a nail or two, but they get the hang of how to angle the hammer very quickly!
Products to use
Safety is very important to me. So I inform goggles or glasses and gloves. Here's what we own. And much more! I have eye and hand protection for every "worker" in the house. There are times that everyone wants to be working on a project. (Click photos for links)
We have very light weight hammers available to the kids similar to this one.
TEKTON 3013 Wood Claw Hammer, 8-Ounce
When they have mastered the skill of hammering a nail, I allow them to learn to use a drill and a saw. My boys have been using this drill for the past 8 years. Fiskars Hand Drill (85116984)
This is the saw that they use until they are 10. It's even been used by my 2 year old son on small pieces of quarter round. Allway Tool #HSN Handy Hand Saw/Blades
Simple woodworking exercises. I like using Montessori Services Catalog to see what is used in primary schools for woodworking supplies. You might ask a wood worker friend if you can have his "scraps". These small pieces of wood are perfect beginning supplies for a creative boy. My sons (as young as four years old) have made "planes" to "bookshelves". The finished product sometimes needs a little imagination from this mother, but they have made cuts with a saw and used a hammer. This book was useful in the beginning when I was collecting tools and making a space.
The finished projects of 2year old and 5 year olds have some resemblance to the real thing (and sometimes not), but having a finished product in hand makes them so happy. I like to display the woodworking projects on our kitchen table for a day or two. We enjoy them and the remember the process in which they were created.
Do you encourage woodworking?
(next post woodworking for the older child...)