ABSTRACT
This chapter looks in considerable depth at the rich learning and development that is associated with woodwork. It also looks at how woodwork supports children's learning dispositions and builds on how they learn best: through rich experiential learning. The chapter explains how woodwork embraces all the specific areas of the curriculum with particular emphasis on personal development and thinking skills. It discusses how woodwork can develop children's thinking around sustainability and concludes with thoughts about monitoring progression in children's creative development. Woodwork can be seen to embrace all the characteristics of effective learning. Play is the highest expression of human development in childhood for it alone is the free expression of the child's soul. In woodwork, children explore what they can do with the tools, playing with possibilities. Children immediately feel valued and feel a sense of responsibility when given the opportunity to work with real tools.
