It was a great day today. The Mosman Park Eco Fair was organised by the wonderful group of people from the Mosman Park community, including bods from St Lukes Anglican Parish in Mosman Park, and they all did a fantastic job too. There was a wide array of stalls, displays, speakers, and activities. I was there doing woodwork with kids all day. It was flat out all day!
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| Nice work! |
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| Kids love using the brace and bit! |
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| Looks like a lidded box under construction. |
This activity was just pure creative play. There were no set projects. Just benches, hammers and nails, a few other tools, and a mountain of wood. All the timber was derived from factory waste, packaging, roofing off-cuts, etc - which would normally all have been heading into the waste stream. Better to recycle and redistribute it back out in to the community in hundreds of things the kids have created and taken home!
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| The "sawing station" in use - textbook technique, too! Well done, Kiddo. |
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| Kids very quickly learn to use the vices. |
During the day we went through a huge pile of timber. I have a big box of wood there for the kids to rummage through, and I keep topping it up throughout the day. The wood is predominantly soft stuff, to make it easier for the kids to hammer nails into - bits of pine, plywood, dowelling, etc.
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| Here's a palacial residence under construction. |
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| Some of these kids hung around for hours, making stuff. |
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| Nice aeroplane. |
Parents derived a lot of pleasure from seeing their kids enthralled and engaged in their woodworking projects. Kids derived lots of pleasure from using the tools and creating stuff which came into their heads. The pounding of 20 hammers went on all day.
My task was to wander amongst the seven benches, give advice on tool use and problem solving, offer encouragement and praise, and keep up the supply of timber, nails, and tools. Very busy all day. All around me were kids engaged in creative play, experiencing the joy of wood. That was, after all, the whole idea...
Thanks, St Luke's and other Mossie Parkers, for turning on this great day for the wider community.
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