Mt. Pleasant Classical Academy

This is something I’ve been wanting to share for the last 6 months; a project that I’m quite proud of and replying to a post at The Homeschool Library got me thinking that I really needed to share this.

High School electives are not something I really thought too much about when I was planning out ScienceKid’s high school program. My feeling was that they would take care of themselves. Somehow. My plan was to put him in charge of coming up with electives, and then it would be something he would really enjoy doing. Besides we homeschooling moms have enough to worry about with planning our kids education than to think about electives too.

I’m glad I didn’t worry about electives.

The project really started when ScienceKid admired wooden kayaks on the water where we vacation. He wanted to purchase one however either he or maybe DH suggested that he look into building one. Wouldn’t that be a great project! And how could I have ever planned such a cool elective for him? We’ve shared this project with college educators and the feedback was that this project is worth several high school credits in Woodworking. Who would have known, but that isn’t the reason SK took on this project. He is the one wanting to build a strip-built wooden kayak! Now, how neat and educational is that!

Early last year SK read kayak building books which reminds me that I must get those book names into my Homeschool Tracker Program. Next he researched kayaking companies, and kayak building kits before deciding to purchase a Guillemot Night Heron kayak kit. The BP’s arrived and SK got right to work.

He used the bandsaw to cut out the forms.

Doesn’t it look like a work of art?

More forms were made.

Next he made a stand for the kayak.

And this long board he is resting upon is the kayak’s form backbone. All the forms will go upon this.

He purchased cedar and other pretty, lightweight wood.

This is SK showing off how strong he is holding a 16′ long piece of wood.

Strips were cut from the 10″x16′ boards and the one project step SK was not permitted to perform alone. We’d like him to keep all his fingers and relied upon DH to do the strip cutting with SK pulling the strips from the table saw. Once the strips were cut the edges were routed. Darn, I don’t have photos of SK doing that step yet.

The forms in place, the first strip went into place.

This step was quite slow with SK checking angles and ’stuff’ before he was able to proceed.

Soon though the kayak began to take shape.