To celebrate their 100th day of the school year, my son’s homework tonight for his second grade class is to bring in a collection of 100 small items. We were going over our options of what he could bring in: maybe some Lego pieces, pennies… or how about pieces of wood? He loved the idea, especially when I offered some different species to make the selection of different colors. This was turning into a great opportunity for Get Woodworking Week!
After cutting up 25 pieces each of pine, red oak, maple and walnut, my son helped me sand any of the rough edges. Then came sorting time. We labelled four sandwich bags for each of the species. We then talked about how each of the trees make a different color wood, with different grain and how some woods are harder or softer than others. Some of the red oak pieces had some of the bark still on them, so when my son asked why those were two colors, I got to explain how that was part of the bark from the tree still there, and that wood came from the outside part of the tree.
Of course, you don’t have to wait until Get Woodworking Week to teach your child about woodworking, take any opportunity to do that! It just so happened this opportunity came up this week!