I have an amazing group of students! They are curious, hard working, and love hands on projects. We live in a small Vermont town in the Connecticut Valley. My students farm, build race cars, and play basketball so they no strangers to hard work. We study the Industrial Revolution in 8th grade and are fascinated with how people lived prior to the machine age. They made everything! If you needed a chair- you made it, if you needed a spoon- you carved it.
Kids these days get their spoons too easily.
People used to have to carve them by hand! I want to teach my students how to be spoon self-sufficient. I'd like for them to understand and appreciate how much work goes into making things by hand.
My Project
Most kids don't think twice about grabbing a plastic spoon to eat their lunch and then tossing it in the garbage when they're done. I want to teach my students to appreciate the spoon and how much work used to go into making them.
We often overlook the smallest things that make us human.
We are tool makers and users. I want to teach my students the practical and timeless skill of carving spoons.
They will learn how to select the right wood, practice safe tool use, and come to appreciate the value of doing things by hand, the slow way.
Your donations will pay for spoon carving knives and finger guards to keep them safe. Your donations will also get us a couple of books that will inspire us to create beautiful spoons.
We have an outdoor classroom in the woods near our school that will serve as a source of wood and a place where we can sit and carve together.
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