This blog is dedicated to sharing the concept that our hands are essential to learning- that we engage the world and its wonders, sensing and creating primarily through the agency of our hands. We abandon our children to education in boredom and intellectual escapism by failing to engage their hands in learning and making.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Today at the Clear Spring School the high school students made natural "crook" hangers from tree branches for their new classroom based on drawings from Eric Sloane's book, A Reverence for Wood. The process used in making the hooks was to saw the tree branches to length, secure them in a vise and use a hand plane to cut a flat surface for mounting. Then the ends and edges were whittled, sanded and formed to avoid sharp edges. On Monday we will mount them on boards so they can then be hung for use in the hallway at school. We also studied the use of natural crooks in both ship building and architecture in preparation for their next block.
About 50 years ago my grandfather showed me how to make the same type of hooks. On the farm you could not find a commercial or metal coat or harness hanger.
ReplyDeleteI think he learned from his father(my great grandfather)how to make them. Papa Tait.