Looking for an outdoor hobby to engage your children and encourage them to be crafty and creative? Wood carving is not only easy to learn and fun to do, but almost everything you need to get started can be found for free -- right outside your door! 

Together you can craft a tumbling tower game, a racing car toy, a dolphin necklace or even a handy coat hook! With more than fifty activities at levels for beginners and up, children can create something useful, beautiful or fun (often all three!) out of wood. 

Learning wood carving not only helps to improve children's concentration, creativity and dexterity, it's also invaluable in teaching them how to handle knives safely. 

Adventurous children will be thrilled to learn woodland skills, while nature-loving parents will enjoy rediscovering the lost art of whittling with their kids.

Table of Contents

Contents 
Introduction 
Difficulty levels 
Whittling guidelines 
Getting started 
Finding a whittling knife 
Protective gear 
Wood 
Where to find fresh branches 
Dry wood 
Wood carving 
techniques 
Whittling away from the body 
Whittling towards the body 
Practical tips 
Sharpening knives 
Saws and garden shears 
Splitting wood 
Colouring wood 
Sanding wood 
Carving seat 
Whittling and reading 

Animal figures 
Bird made from a single branch 
Bird with a feathery tail 
Bird made from the end of a branch 
Lifelike bird 

Pigs and dogs 
Fence with string or rails 
Dolphin 
Seal 
Snake 
Games 
Pig throwing 
Game pieces 
Tower of Hanoi 
The four confounding squares 
Toys 
Racing car 
Spinning tops 
Spinning top with handle and pull string 
Whittled top

Great accompaniment to our Opinel Whittling Knives and Corvus Carving Knives