DAY TREE
On the third day we continued our work by making the parts of our table nice and smooth.
The first step was using chisels for taking off the remaining bark.
Amazing what those Turtles were capable of!
Before working on the pieces of wood, each group had to do a puzzle and put the parts in the right place on the drawing.
Then we used raspers on the corners and edges…
…and after that sandpaper.
The result was a nice and smooth piece of wood.
The sandpaper was attached to a board with a handle to make it easier to use.
The kids were really working hard…
… and finished all parts of the first set of legs in short time.
After that it was time to connect the pieces. We put the parts in the right position, tightened them with clamps to the workbench and started drilling some holes with the drilling machine.
The holes made it easier for the children to hammer in the nails.
That’s how we connected the parts.
After drilling and hammering, the children did some more sandpapering for the second pair of legs.
The first two legs were connected with the upper rail.
The next group connected the lower rail.
The turtles did a good job even though the wood was really hard.
The sandpapering took a lot of time.
Here you see the fist two legs connected with two rails.
To enforce the construction…
… the children started to add the diagonals.
They seemed to like the work a lot.
Then we drilled little holes again and connected the second diagonal with nails.
After that the first set of legs was complete.
We cut off the overlap with a handsaw…
… and the first big part of our table was almost finished.
DAY FOUR
On the fourth day we still had to connect the diagonals with some more nails.
The children were getting better and better with hammering…
and it didn’t take long for the last nail to be hammered in.
Then we put the hole set of legs on the large drawing…
…to mark where to cut off the ends of the legs.
Again we used the handsaw for that step.
Finally the first set of legs was finished.
Time to start with the other pair of legs…
First we hammered the upper rail to the top of the legs.
Then we connected the lower rail.
Now that we knew how it works we could proceed even faster.
The children helped each other nicely…
…by holding the wood while hammering…
… and while cutting with the handsaw.
Even though it is usually not easy for children…
…to cut with a handsaw,…
….the Turtles learned quickly how to use it.
By the end of the fourth day the second set of legs was nicely finished.
To be continued in part 3…