Woodworking for kids can be as simple as giving them a hammer, a scrap of wood, some nails, and the okay to make a little noise. A little kidding in the shop can introduce potential makers to a craft rich with valuable lessons, skills, and rewards. If your child already has an intrinsic interest, a woodworking class or back-to-school woodshop program might be just the thing to cultivate that curiosity. For older students, high school woodworking projects and woodworking schools can carve the path from hobby to career.
All it really takes to support future makers is to provide them with the opportunities to follow their creativity. Help them find quality tools, patient instruction, and a safe space to take those interests as far as they want. Family members, teachers, and other mentors all have a role to play in the wonder of woodwork. Give kids a chance to work with their hands, experience the satisfaction of making something real, and see where that experience leads.
Meet Kids Where They Are
Adults tend to approach teaching from what we think a child should learn. Woodworker, educator, and author Doug Stowe suggests turning that around. “You have to really start with the interests of the child,” he says. “Once the interest is there, you have something to build on.”
Wood crafts for kids don’t need to feel like a rigorous lesson; they can be fun and have a positive purpose! A kid who collects rocks, action figures, or trading cards may appreciate a display shelf. A racing fan might get excited about a wooden car. A burgeoning musician could use a music stand. Stowe remembers connecting projects in his classes to subjects the students were already studying. When the kids learned about dinosaurs, they made dinosaurs. One student’s interest in trains eventually spread until the other kids wanted to build trains, too.
Woodworking also gives kids a chance to engage with something physical. Stowe has written about the value of balancing high-tech and hands-on experiences. Woodworker James Wright of Wood by Wright frequently brings his own kids into the shop. His daughter Melody has even developed her own YouTube page.
Don't Force It
You’re inviting a kid into your world, so be willing to spend some time in theirs, too. Play the games they like. Watch their shows. Ask about the things they collect or what they want to build. That healthy exchange makes shop time not feel like a chore.
Keep the experience positive, too. Screens and phones are an integral part of modern life for kids. Lecturing about the “good old days” probably won’t build much enthusiasm for a fun woodshop experience. A project that captures their interest has a better chance. Phones can become useful shop tools for researching ideas, photographing a finished project, or recording the process.
Give Kids the Tools They Need
You don’t need to outfit a second shop to introduce woodworking for kids. Start with a few tools matched to the child’s abilities and the project at hand, then add tools as their skills and independence grow.
Giving a young maker their first tool kit can establish a sense of ownership.
- Safety glasses
- Apron
- Measuring & Marking tools
- Small hammer or mallet
- Clamps
- Hand drill
- Screwdrivers
- Sandpaper
- Toolbox
Scrap wood and inexpensive dimensional lumber provide plenty of material for experimenting. Tool use should always come with instruction and supervision appropriate to the child and the tool.
As confidence grows, add tools based on the work the child wants to do. The progression will look different for every young woodworker, which is another reason to let projects lead the way. A child interested in carving needs different tools from one interested in turning or box making.
Teachers and Local Businesses Can Create Woodworking Opportunities
A home shop is only one place to provide access. Teachers, local trade services, and community organizations can help put tools and instruction within reach of more young people.
High school woodworking projects can treat hands-on work as a meaningful part of education. Stowe’s Wisdom of the Hands program connected woodworking to math, history, literature, and science. His point reaches beyond training future professional woodworkers. Working with real materials can help students understand ideas, solve problems, and learn about themselves.
The New England Association of Woodworking Teachers expands on those benefits in 21 Reasons Why School Wood Shops are Important in the 21st Century, which includes problem-solving, perseverance, pride of accomplishment, and connecting hands-on work to other subjects.
Local businesses can support a woodworking class or back-to-school woodshop program by donating materials, talking with students, or creating internship opportunities. Those relationships also show students that the skills they’re learning have a place beyond the classroom.
Where Can Woodworking Lead?
For some kids, woodworking becomes a lifelong hobby. Others begin looking at high school woodworking projects and wondering if making could become a career. That is where schools, industry groups, and structured training programs can help make the next steps visible.
Rich Christianson, communications director for the Woodwork Career Alliance, says the organization was created to give woodworking the kind of skills standards and credentialing pathways already established in other trades. The WCA works with about 140 schools, and its Passport program records skills students demonstrate as they progress.
The program has also gained momentum. Christianson says WCA reached its 10,000th Passport after crossing 5,000 only two years earlier. Credentials can help students show employers what they have already learned and give woodworking schools and teachers a clearer framework for instruction.
John LeTourneau of the National Woods Board describes a related approach as a three-legged stool: an industry-developed curriculum, WCA credentialing, and direct involvement from the woodworking industry. Together, those pieces give students a clear pathway.
“A lot of the disconnect between students and potential careers, especially in the trades, are around the idea that nobody really understands how to do it or what the path looks like,” LeTourneau says. When students, parents, and school counselors can see where training leads, the possibility becomes easier to imagine.
Making a career as a maker
A woodworking career can take many forms. Cabinet and furniture shops need people who can operate equipment and build products, but the industry also includes CAD and design work, sales, product development, manufacturing support, and entrepreneurship.
“It’s also about learning and being creative. Those skills can be taken anywhere.”
— Rich Christianson
SkillsUSA provides another way for students to explore skilled careers, including cabinetmaking, through career and technical education and competition.
Christianson sees value beyond a specific woodworking career. “It’s also about learning and being creative,” he says. “Those skills can be taken anywhere.”
LeTourneau emphasizes curiosity, critical thinking, teamwork, and safety. His National Woods Board curriculum is project-based, so students apply what they learn to real work and learn to solve problems together.
Supporting the Next Generation Starts With Us
Woodworking for kids begins much closer to home than a national credentialing program or career pathway. Parents and grandparents can invite kids into the shop. Woodworkers can mentor. Teachers can create room for hands-on learning. Businesses can support woodworking schools and local youth turning programs with materials, expertise, and job opportunities.
Christianson says the woodworking industry should start asking what each business can do in its own community to find skilled workers. That local support matters because young people often begin their training, first jobs, and careers close to home.
Find Opportunities Outside Your Shop
If you don’t have a shop or the experience to teach woodworking yourself, look for other ways to connect an interested kid with making:
- Woodcraft classes and demonstrations
- School shop and career-technical programs
- Local woodworking clubs
- Camps, youth organizations, and community classes
- MakerKids
A woodworking class can provide instruction and access to tools, while woodworking schools and career programs can give older students more structured training. The important part is helping them find the next opportunity when they show interest.
LeTourneau summed up the greater effort with a simple idea: “The secret sauce here is collaboration.” Schools, families, businesses, industry groups, and individual woodworkers all have something to contribute.
The future woodworker in your life may eventually build furniture for a living, design products, work in manufacturing, or simply keep a shop as a lifelong hobby. You don’t have to know where that interest will lead before you support it. Supporting wood crafts for kids and the next generation begins by opening your shop door, handing over a tool, and saying, “Want to try?”
CHAD McCLUNG
Chad is a woodworker with nearly 20 years of experience in woodworking and home improvement, covering these topics as a how-to writer, editor, and photographer. He is the former editor-in-chief of Woodcraft Magazine. When not in the shop, Chad is probably adding to a Blu-ray collection that rivals his tool collection.