Over the last two decades, children have increasingly become more familiar with digital screens like televisions, phone applications, and other digital resources, but they’ve become less familiar and had fewer opportunities to develop practical, hands-on skills. When it comes to learning how the world works, how everyday objects operate, and fixing basic household items, practical, hands-on skills are essential. Creating a classroom environment that exposes kids to opportunities like this is no easy feat, but it is a worthwhile one – DIY Education offers students the chance to roll up their sleeves, engage in meaningful projects that have tangible outcomes, and learn real-world skills that will develop their self-confidence and foster their creative problem solving abilities.

Building Life Skills Through Hands-On Learning

Practical skills like knowing how to accurately measure or build something (either from scratch or following instructions), how to cook for one’s self, how to sew or create something from materials, how to garden and grow your own food – the list could go on – are all skills that are acquired over time, with repetition, and thus with a tangible sense of progress. It is the very learning experience of these practical skills that lend themselves so well to developing critical support mechanisms called life skills.

The World Health Organization coined life skills in its role in creating psychosocial competence in a school setting as a set of abilities “for adaptive and positive behavior that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life”. These are abilities such as the following:

• Decision making

• Problem solving

• Creative thinking

• Critical thinking

• Effective communication

• Interpersonal relationship skills

• Self-awareness

• Empathy

• Coping with emotions

• Coping with stress

Case Study: Learning Woodworking with DIY Project kits

Now, let’s consider a mini case study where a kid is learning woodworking through a pre-cut DIY project kit. 

1. The child’s experience is going to include identifying all of the wood parts and hardware that they’ll use to assemble their project, requiring them to think both critically and creatively in advance of building the actual project as they imagine how all these parts go together to produce the end-product.

2. As they progress into the project building process, the student will learn how to use specific tools required for assembly, thereby exercising a sense of self-awareness, effective communication, and safe decision making as they begin to use the tools with proper technique and safety rules in mind.

3. As the student follows step-by-step instructions to assemble their project, they will exercise problem-solving skills by learning how each task gets broken down, the sequence of steps it is ordered in, and even in being presented with opportunities to address any mistakes they may have made.

4. Depending on the project complexity and the child’s abilities, they may experience frustration throughout the build process, but their motivation to complete the build and take home their finished product and their classmate or instructor’s encouragement and guidance helps the students cope with their stress and any other emotions they encounter. 

It’s not by any stretch of the imagination that throughout this whole process, as a student gets closer to completion, they are developing meaningful interpersonal relationships with their peers and extending empathy with one another as they all share this experience of building something from scratch, decorate it in a style that reflects their own sense of self, and get to walk away with tangible proof of their accomplishment. 

This is the power of DIY Education – not only learning the practical skills involved in the creation of something but the life skills acquired by having that experience.

Other Examples of Practical Skills Students Can Benefit from

Of course, woodworking and basic carpentry aren’t the only practical skills that students can benefit from. Here are some more examples of practical skills kids can develop in the classroom and beyond:

• Introductory Electrical Work (working with simple circuits, currents, batteries, and other power sources)

• Household Maintenance Skills (performing minor repairs like patching holes in a wall, tightening screws, routine cleaning and washing of objects or surfaces)

• Gardening

• Caring for Animals

• Sewing, Knitting, Crocheting

• Map / Navigation Reading (make this fun with a treasure map or some kind of reward at the end of their navigating)

• Time Management (run an experiment with kids to have them try out different schedules, time blocks, and other time management tools to see what works for them)

By giving kids an opportunity to learn practical skills like these, we are also giving them opportunities to build their confidence through self-efficacy. When a student accomplishes something that requires them to practice new skills, they have the confidence to try again the next time they encounter a challenge requiring them to step outside their comfort zone. It’s this confidence that promotes positive mental health and coping mechanisms that will serve our youth and individuals far beyond the classroom.

Integrating DIY Education into School Curriculum

Incorporating DIY projects and other hands-on activities into school curriculum is an effective way to align with both state standards as well as preparing students for success in their overall lives. Unlike a traditional lecture-style learning modality, DIY education can give students opportunities to engage with materials, learn through trial and error modalities, and experience the tangible impact of their efforts.

That’s why we’ve developed over 30 unique woodworking and electrical DIY project kits that introduce kids to hands-on skills. Each kit is designed to be age-appropriate and actively engage kids in the building process so they can walk away with not only the practical knowledge and skills of building but also the life skills that will promote their mental health. Learn how to work with us to leverage DIY education to help students grow into confident and capable individuals beyond the classroom.