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Elemenrty School Demo March 24th

J

John Taylor

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Apr 15, 2005
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McDonough GA
I have been invited back (imagine that) to be part of an all day live Art Demo at a local elementry school on March 24th. I will have 7 or 8 35-45 minuite sessions. I plan on turning a small bowl on my mini lathe each time and have a table with a few larger finished pieces they can pickup.

I have a plexiglass shield between me and the students. I might set up a vacuum chuck to reverse tirn the bowl bases and give them a science lesson to boot.

Anyone have any good ideas?

John Taylor
 
Boy Scouts

John
I have about the same amount of time next week at a Boy Scout meeting. Plan to turn a gavel. Show pens, bowls and boxes on a little display table.
Frank
 
A small natural edge bowl is always great for these kinds of demos.
Q: How do you make that oval on the lathe? A: Thats the way the tree grew!

The decision is: one more complicated piece or several smaller pieces like frank decide on. Both work equally well if you turn the large piece fast enough to hold their interest.

You might consider giving the items to the kids through some type of drawing or letting the teacher give them as rewards.

Spinning tops are great for kids of all ages. you can invite one or two kids to either pick the colors or actually apply them.

Happy turning,
Al
 
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I betcha that most of the kids would enjoy seeing you turn a magic wand or two!!! Tops are also kinda fun if you spice 'em up like Bonnie Kline does!

Jonathon
 
John I turned spinning tops and colored them with pens and chatterwork. They absolutely loved the chatterwork noise and loved watching the pens color the wood. I even had one deaf child who could feel the chatterwork vibrations as I did it and smiled every time I did it. Made my whole day.
 
Thanks

Thanks for all the ideas. It looks like I will have 7 different classes to demo something too. 35-45 min isn't much time. Thanks for all the suggestions.

John Taylor
 
School Demo was a success

They had me outside in the Bus Lane at the school. It never got out of the 40's all day Friday and there wasn't any shaving cleanup it was windy all day. I had a lot of fun. My demo assistant was a no show.

I had mostly 3 and 4th graders with one 2nd grade class. The best group was the 2nd graders, they couldn't figure out how the vacuum chuck worked. So at the end of the demo each one put his or her hand on the chuck.

One 4th grader couldn't figure out how I got everything round. I tried and tried to explain how the lathe worked. The maple bowl was a great hit. A fresh grind on the bowl gouge and then ribbons and ribbons of shavings in my face. Te enable the kids to see inside the bowl I was downwind. I turned several small bowls and a spindle or two.

Every peice of wood I held up and passed around was "oak". Well that's at least what one 4th grader said. Hopefully it will be warmer next time.

John Taylor
 
John Taylor said:
One 4th grader couldn't figure out how I got everything round. I tried and tried to explain how the lathe worked.
Click to expand...
If you get that question again, you can just explain that the round piece was inside the wood before you began and all that you had to do was cut away all of the excess stuff until you exposed the round piece.

Bill
 
Like Jonathan said, tops are perfect for demos to elementary schools.
In addition, should you choose the Bonnie Klein type, you can ask your audiance to come on the lathe and to color them.
The fact to get the kids involved and just not sitting and watching drastically increases the success of your demo
 
What I learned

My Boy Scout demo was last night. It went OK but I can see that I could have done much better. It was the first time I demo'd turning in front of a captive audience. A few times in the past I have turned at fairs and shows were people could stop and watch but they were not trapped in their chairs to watch. Here are a few things I learned.

1) The gavel took about 45 minutes to turn and sand, too long for kids. I am going to have to learn tops.
2) I choose some brazilian cherry for my material. A friendlier material would have been a better choice. I used it because I have a lot of it that I picked up free from the scrap tub at a local custom stair factory.
3) Where safety glasses not my face shield. I was trying to be a good example but they couldn't hear me when I had the shield down.
4) Pratice some jokes to fill time.

This weekend I will be demo'ing again at the wine shop/gallery that sells my work. There I can do bottle stoppers which are my favorite turned item. People will be drinking so I suspect they won't require as much entertainment as the boys did last night.
Frank
 
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