Introducing children to the shop

[Ronn W]

I have a 3 1/2 yr old grandson.  He has a plastic workbench and figured out the vise and screw driver months ago. He loves the hammer and his little plastic motorized nut driver. The only thing that I remember from my childhood and Dad's work bench was filling a piece of 2x4 with nails.  Sometime in the next year I figure that there should be some things that he can do in Grandpa's shop if I prepare the proper set up for him. Hammer and nails? Nouts and bolts? Helping to assemble and paint something from pre-prepared pieces.  I don't have much experience here.  Any suggestions?

[Andy Wright]

My kids loved to take a piece of scrap wood (softwood like pine) and shape it with files at 4-6 years old. I would cut out a shape on my band saw like a circle or triangle then put it in a vise and let them "smooth it out"

[wdwerker]

I started young in my dads shop but he was careful to teach me about safety around power tools.1964 Mattell Power Shop for Christmas ! 

[treeslayer]

i really enjoy my time with the grandkids in the shop Ronn, i started them out at about 4 yrs old with pre-cut parts for birdhouses and feeders, pre-drill the holes for nails and let them hammer away, then paint and sign them. they are 7 now and are using the bandsaw, cordless drills, drill press, with CLOSE supervision and they love it

wow! i had one of those steve, thanks for bringing back memories!

[Coop]

And I had a shirt like that too! Must have been a seventies fad?

[h3nry]

I built this toy-box with an 8 year old friend of mine. Although I did most of the work, there was no part of the build that he wasn't involved with  from measuring the layout to cutting the dovetails.

What became apparent was a low attention span, he'd get part way through a task, before getting bored, and I'd have to take over and try to finish it as quickly as possible so we could get started on the next task and keep the momentum going.

I think we were both quite pleased with the end result:

[Jivod]

I have started introducing my grandchildren to the shop at age 3. I pre-cut some projects that just needed to be cut apart with a hand saw (I used an old dovetail saw), sanded, and glued together. When they were a little older, I introduced them to my cordless drill when they built a bird house. My only wish is that they lived closer so I could spend more time in the shop with them.