Specialty Class Highlight for March 2024: Woodworking

In Woodworking, the students are in the midst of working on their projects.

First Grade

The First graders are working on building maracas. They are sawing, drilling, and sanding bamboo pieces.

Second Grade

While not technically woodworking, the Second Grade class is working hard to dig a hole that will be used to fire clay pottery. 

Third Grade

Third Grade made planters for the dome, which is serving as our Garden School greenhouse. The students measured, sawed, and hammered the pieces to connect them together.

Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Grade

Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Grade are busy working on the water mill. After using the planer on the planks from the felled Princess tree, the students measured, sawed, and gouged the pieces to fit each other. This process involves geometry, math, and a healthy dose of accuracy. 

Fifth graders have finished their walking sticks and are now working on building candleholders from Flaming Box Elder branch sections. The students learned to gouge and use this skill to form their projects.

Sixth Grade is working on forming wooden balls and spoons. The students are using a variety of hand tools to achieve their goals.

Specialty Class Highlight October 2023: Woodworking

This year, we are boosting the woodworking program as the children grow. These are the main projects in their curriculum:

Sixth Grade is working on making spoons. Starting with a stump of black walnut, the students split the wood and axed it to the rough dimensions. Now, they are moving to more fine tools like gouges, drawknives, and spokeshaves to shape the spoon. 

Fifth Grade is working on whittling a walking stick from a branch they harvested from the forest. 

We will also add some small projects for some of the younger grades as we go. Right now, Fourth Grade is working on making a wooden path next to the playground. They also made shields for Day of Courage.

Second Grade made swords for Day of Courage. 

Another big project will combine Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Grades in building a watermill, which will involve a lot of woodwork. More on that in the highlight for EE.

Specialty Class Highlight May 2023: Woodworking

As the school year comes to a close for us, we celebrate Mr. Matan joining our faculty, bringing his enthusiasm for Waldorf education to our faculty, and sharing his many varied talents and skills with our students. 

First Grade:

During the past weeks, First Grade students were busily hammering the birdhouse together. Once finished hammering, they sanded down rough edges, making it safe for birds and fingers alike. It’s nice to see the sparks in the eyes of the students when they see the transformation between pieces of wood to a birdhouse. They have worked steadily and the results are beautiful.

Third Grade:

Third Grade continues the work on the wooden house near their classroom that they are building as part of the third grade Waldorf curriculum which aims to help the students develop their feeling of confidence as they wake up from their dreamy childhood slumber to the greater  world around them. Now that the structure is solid, the students are completely independent, sawing pieces of wood and hammering them onto the house. For extra fun, Ki Derek added a big swing next to the third-fourth grade outdoor classroom. The students are taking turns flying to the sky. It’s a good opportunity to work on developing proprioceptive skills and conquering the skies!

Fourth Grade:

The rabbits’ new abode and area is nearing completion.  Fourth Grade students finished the enclosure by completing the fencing and the floor of the bunny cage. The class will complete their final tasks of fencing by securing the sides as they connect the different wires at the corners to create a seal that keeps the bunnies safely inside and other farm animals and predators out!  

Warmly,

Matan


Adult Woodworking Class

This year we are very fortunate to have on our staff the talented Mr. Matan who not only manages the farm animals and teaches Environmental Education and Games classes, but is also a gifted artist in the crafts curriculum.

This past fall and winter, Mr. Matan led a group of parents in a discovery of spoon making. But first, a wooden mallet had to be fashioned which would be a major tool for creating the spoon. This project familiarized us with the use of a hatchet to create the general lines of the mallet, and then the drawing blade to refine the shape. This took us through the fall session. When the class resumed at the end of January, another length of split wood (some cherry, some pecan) was offered to begin again with the ax to expose the general shape of a spoon. Surely here there is some outer force that guides the hand as a mostly straight chunk of wood takes shape. After the hatchet, the drawing blade to further outline the spoon shape, and finally the mallet and gouge to round the shape and well of the spoon and the handle.

Each evening began with a short description of one aspect Waldorf education that awakens one to the miracle of child development and how this awakening is nurtured through the curriculum. It was agreed that the whole experience was a new way of learning with heart and hands!

Specialty Class Highlight: Woodworking February 2023

During the past weeks, the students in first, third and fourth grade were busy continuing to develop skills with sawing, using a plane, and hammering. Our second and fifth grade classes are working on other skills at the moment.

In first grade, we continued to work on building a birdhouse. The students are getting experts in handling a saw, sawing straight, and working together for this common goal.

Third grade started to build a house out of logs from the forest. They came up with a design that everyone was happy with, and now they are busy collecting the wood, sawing it to the right length, and hammering pieces together. Aside from supporting them with a structure and making sure that everyone is contributing, it is entirely their project and I'm excited to see what it will look like when it’s done.

Fourth grade is almost done with the bunny house. We have just a few more panels to attach. We also started digging holes for the posts when the handle of our spade gave up and broke. We replaced the old one with a new and much stronger handle carved by the students from the cherrywood we had harvested in our forest. It was a great opportunity to learn that when something breaks we can fix it rather than always buying new things.

Specialty Class Highlight November 29-December 2, 2022: Woodworking

Our woodshop is growing! We are continuing to expand the physical workshop and the programs we are offering to students and the wider community. 

During the Thanksgiving break, we installed four new vises. This means we now have eight workstations for student work.  After returning from our break, the fourth graders added a door for the bunny house. The students thought about the mechanism for the door. They had to consider how the door would open and shut and how to lock the bunnies at night. We also started to work on clearing the area on the farm that will house the bunnies. In fifth grade, we finished our coat hangers for the outdoor classroom and started working on candleholders to bring home some light for the holidays. The students had to saw the wood and split it in half using an ax. Later, they used a planer to flatten the bottom and used gouges to work on the top.

I am excited to share that we have started our adult woodworking program. Interested community members can now join us once a week for an adults-only woodworking class. (If you missed the registration period for this current group, be on the lookout for upcoming information on our spring class.) We are currently working on building mallets. This involves bashing through the hard wood with axes and then shaping the wood. While woodworking, we explore the forces of the will and discuss some fundamental theoretical concepts of the educational philosophy behind Waldorf education.

Matan

Specialty Class Highlight October 2022: Woodworking

As The Garden School of Marietta school grows, new needs and opportunities arise. In fifth grade, Waldorf students traditionally start their woodworking lessons. Wood is an important medium for students of this age. By working with its resistance and shaping it into new forms, students develop their will forces.  

When I learned that I would be joining the Garden School as a woodwork teacher and would be tasked with building a new woodworking program from scratch, I reached out to my friends and my community and received a lot of support. Some offered me generous tool donations. Additionally, our school has supplied many items to begin this program. These tools are now available for the students’ use and open up new and exciting opportunities for our lessons.  I also had an amazing opportunity to chose specific types of hardwood for the students to work with which was donated by Top Tier Trees (a warm thank you to them!).

The year started with the fifth graders by preparing a space outside that will grow into our outdoor woodshop. The students used the wood from the area to whittle coat hangers using whittling knives. The coat hangers will serve us in the outdoor classroom. We also worked on making shields for the second grade for the Day of Courage. The fourth graders are working on building a rabbit hutch that will soon house our school bunnies. This will be such a fun addition to our farm. With the second graders, we made swords that helped them to face the dragon during our Day of Courage celebrations. All of this is just the beginning. Soon we will open our first woodworking courses for interested adults. Details will be forthcoming. So stay tuned!