Setting Up a Woodworking Center

Looking for a new way to help your students develop large and small motor skills, solve problems, encourage creativity and build self-esteem? Follow these suggestions from Project Learning Tree’s Environmental Experiences for Early Childhood to set up a woodworking center in your classroom.

Show the Tools
A woodworking center should start with a child-size workbench equipped with a vise. Introduce tools one at a time; by the end of the year, the woodworking center could feature the following equipment:

• safety goggles
• sandpaper and files in a variety of grades and sizes
• wood glue
• lightweight hammers
• large-headed nails, such as roofing nails
• short screwdrivers with large stubby handles (straight slot and Phillips)
• large screws
• hand drills
• pliers
• tape measures, rulers, and squares
• carpenter pencils and notebooks for planning and sketching
• vises or C-clamps
• small whiskbroom and dustpan for cleanup

Establish the rules

• Everyone must wear safety goggles in the woodworking area whether he or she is using tools or just watching.
• An adult must be present when tools are in use.
• Tools have special jobs and can be used only for that job. Hammers are used only for hammering nails into wood.
• Tools and supplies must be put away. Use a pegboard in the woodworking area to hold tools. Trace around the tools on the pegboard, and write the name of the tool next to the outline. This system makes it easier for children to return tools to their proper places.

Follow these suggestions

• Check home-improvement stores, lumberyards, and construction sites for scraps of wood. Soft woods are best.
• Introduce tools one at a time to small groups of students.
• Pound large-head nails (roofing nails) into stumps for practice. If your children are not ready for hammering real nails into wood, let them experiment by hammering golf tees into Styrofoam packing pieces.
• To avoid children hurting their fingers when nailing, use needle-nose pliers to hold the nail. Children can also push the nail through a small square of paper and then hold the paper to get the nail started.
• Use a vise or C-clamp to hold wood for sawing, drilling, and hammering. Most injuries happen to the hand that is holding the material-not the hand holding the tool.
• When sawing, either both hands must be on the saw or the “other” hand must be behind the child’s back.