The Easiest Ever Kids Pallet Project

If you’re looking for an easy way to give your kids the chance to hammer and saw, for not much money, this easy kids’ pallet project may fit the bill.

 

A simple kids' activity using an old pallet. This simple, inexpensive idea gives kids experience using a hammer and saw. Also discusses a recommended storybook.

It all started when we visited an old friend who’d moved across town. She’d had something delivered that arrived on a wood pallet. Rather than putting the pallet on the curb, she put it the backyard.
She got out some tools and let her daughter play with it.

My kids were super-excited to join in the woodworking fun!

So the next week I started keeping my eye out for a discarded pallet. When I found one, the weather had turned chilly. So we set it aside — until last weekend.

The warm weather was perfect for an outdoor activity where I’d be mostly sitting and supervising. The kids, on the other hand, were busy busy busy.

 

 

 

Kids Pallet Project Details

There’s no grand master plan here. In fact, that’s the point.

I bought a box of nails and an extra hammer, and a couple bucks worth of 70% off damaged wood from the lumberyard. We already had an old hammer and saw.

I gave a safety talk. I probably didn’t provide enough safety equipment. We really need to get some safety glasses and child-sized work gloves. A vice grip would have been nice too. I did supervise heavily, and we all made it through without even a splinter.

Liam, who is 9 now, wanted to plan out and build something elaborate. This isn’t really that kind of project.

It was perfect, though, for my 6 year old twins. For them, it was all about the process of hammering and sawing.

 

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Kids Pallet Project Book Extension

Now, they appreciate what it’s like to saw through boards and hammer nails in straight. It’s time to pull out one of our old favorite books.

Andrew Henry’s Meadow {affiliate} is about an inventive boy who feels ignored as the middle child. One day her runs away. He takes his tools and hikes through woods and over boulders to a meadow. There, he builds an amazing treehouse. One by one, other children join him. He builds each of them their own perfect “house” too until there is a little village there in the meadow.

It’s the ultimate children’s fantasy story, and will make parents feel nostalgic for the era of a childhood with more freedom and less supervision.

 

A simple kids' activity using an old pallet. This simple, inexpensive idea gives kids experience using a hammer and saw. Also discusses a recommended storybook.

I really wanted to just send my kids to the backyard by themselves with that pallet. I just kept imagining someone with an ugly splinter, a hammered finger, or more likely a hammer used as a weapon. So I stayed close by.

They were none the wiser about my internal dilemma. They got to practice some basic woodworking skills. A real expert could have taught them better, but this was a great first taste. They loved having their very own kids’ pallet project.

7 Comments

  1. My kids love to work alongside daddy with the hammer and saws. I saved a couple pallets from a remodel project a couple years ago but after a few months of sitting in the backyard, I finally got rid of them. I should have let the kids practice on them.

    1. I used to love working along with my Dad like that too. Your kids are lucky! My children learn other wonderful things from Daddy, but not woodworking. …hence my pallet project 🙂

    1. Thanks, Ali. My kids are dying to get back out there with it again. We got our pallet from a neighbor who was discarding it. You do have to make sure whoever you get your pallet from isn't planning on re-using it or returning it for a deposit back. I'm sure you'll be able to find one, though.

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