The woodworking workshop was held at the 3rd Primary School of Ermoupolis in April and May 2019. All school grades participated, each in one or two three-hour sessions. The goal of the workshop was to introduce children to basic wood-processing techniques in the context of school-level educational handicrafts. Children used age-appropriate woodworking tools after being informed about their proper and safe use. They measured, marked, cut, drilled, and assembled using wooden dowels and wood glue. They created beautiful wooden animals, busts, masks, and even several wooden catapults!
The purpose of educational handicrafts is to bring children into contact with manual production and help them understand the sequence “idea – design – implementation” in creating objects with practical, aesthetic, and communicative value. Students are trained to choose and safely use materials, techniques, and tools, respect the environment, and manage raw materials and resources responsibly. They also get to know arts, techniques, and production methods from various historical periods and regions across the globe, encouraging them to perceive themselves as part of an ongoing historical process and active contributors to the development of human material culture. Finally, they engage in “collective environments” of design and object-making for use in the classroom, schoolyard, and neighborhood.
Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth.