Builder Boards, a short history
I designed Builder Boards for Kindergardeners but I found elementary age kids liked them too, but I was surprised when middle school kids played with them for quite a while. One kid said, “we want to build a set for ourselves.” At the time I didn’t think much about it but later the idea began to grow on me and I realized with jigs kids could make a set using only hand tools.
I eventually came across a middle school that was having every student participate in a service learning project and found ten kids interested in constructing a set Builder Boards as their project. It was a great project and I documented it in my Book Builder Boards, in School Shop Magazine (Dec 1995) and in a rough video the kids put together. Its on youtube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruDwI3bVesw&t=1s
Now flash forward 24 years and my daughter-in-law asks if I would be interested in fixing the roof boards of a set of Builder Boards at the preschool that my grandson attends. I went over to see what was needed and was astonished to find it was the same set I supervised building in 1994. Here is a picture of the gable end:
Here is the article that was published in School Shop Magazine (DEC 1995) that documents the project.
Builder Boards/Take Apart Playhouse
Recently a teacher friend completed a set with her class of sixth graders and told me an amusing story about teaching practical math. She divided the class into groups, gave each group a board and the plans, and told them to lay out the position of the notches on the board. Of course, each group had the notches in a different position so….. they had to figure out which plan was right. It took a while. I hope to have more information on this project soon.