My three youngest girls have been pestering me for desks for quite some time now. I keep putting them off because in my mind a desk is a major project that requires a huge investment of time, materials and planning.
Enter Mary: she’s seven, bubbly, happy optimistic. She was out in the shop earlier this week trying her best to come up with scraps of wood I would let her use to make a desk. After watching her try to arrange small scraps of plywood to make a top and listening to her talk about gluing things together I finally gave in started helping her.
Depending on the kid and the project, sometimes they mostly watch and answer questions about design and other times I have them do more themselves. Mary mostly watched and held the square for me, but did drive in a few screws.
It took about 20 minutes from start to finish for me to help her build this. If she outgrows it as a desk, it was 20 minutes and scrap wood….and we can put it out by the fire pit as a seat. Sometimes I need to remind myself that it doesn’t actually take that much for the kid to be happy with the end product. And for them it’s all about the process. Their expectations are not the same as mine in a desk ;0).
She searched through the paint stash and found some purple spray paint. I think painting it was her favorite part!
She ran out of the dark purple, but found plenty of light purple to finish up with. As soon as it was dry enough we carried it down to her room so she could play with her legos on it.
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