Today was a day full of energy and rich learning! (Is that why I feel so exhausted?)

We were very fortunate to have Mr. McKillop, the district’s ADST teacher, come to our classroom for the full day to teach us how to make treasure chests out of wood. Apart from the many practical woodworking skills we learned, this also helped us understand that all skills are developed through practice, effort, and action. It was hard work, but I saw a lot of proud faces at the end of the day!

Students started by carefully measuring the pieces we needed to cut. This required using a ruler and a square. The advice was to measure twice and cut once! That did not stop a few pieces from ending up in the scrap pile…

Next, students used a mitre box and saw to cut the pieces for the base of their chest. This was hard work and took most of the morning! I am happy to report that all fingers survived this step.

Mr. McKillop then taught the students how to use an electric drill and driver to screw their pieces together. We found that you had to be quite precise to make sure the base ended up straight. It was also easy to split the wood if the screws were tightened too much. Some students preferred to use a screwdriver instead!

After that, it was time to attach the bottom of the chest using a hammer and nails. This was more challenging than it looked! The nails had to go in perfectly straight or they would end up poking out the sides. We ended up cleaning many bent nails off the floor at the end of the day…

Finally, it was time to attach the lid and sand the chest to perfect smoothness. I had many students coming to me to showcase how soft their treasure chest ended up! We will be painting our treasure chests later in the week and students will be bringing them home once they have dried.

Way to go, Division 7! I would say you demonstrated every core competency in the book today as well as some next-level crafting skills!