By: Dennis Thompson
It all started with a need that turned into an opportunity.
I attend Freedom Fellowship in New Braunfels, TX. Wednesday nights is when Freedom Youth, middle/high school-age teens, meet. Childcare is provide for the children of adults that serve at Freedom Youth. The problem was that the children attending childcare were from 3 years old to 9 years old. My daughter Emily asked if I would start a Stockade program for the boys that were in childcare. I jumped at the opportunity to meet this need by starting Stockade. What started as a small group of four boys and three adults, has grown in five months to 12 Stockaders and 6 leaders.
We started our program by teaching the boys about hatchets, along with the character trait of respect. Each of the boys made a hatchet with a cardboard head and a tree branch handle. By using the acronym SPAM the boys learned how to handle a hatchet safely.
- Surface…What is the surface they are laying the wood on.
- Piece…What is the piece of wood they are chopping.
- Air…Making sure it is clear of anyone or anything around them.
- Methods…Safe methods for chopping wood.
We taught the character trait Respect. Using(verse) we helped them understand how to respect themselves, others and God.
Our final activity was for each boy to build a mini stove using a foil loaf pan. By using a real hatchet, they chopped kindling, built a fire and roasted smokey sausages on a stick. Of course for dessert, they each roasted a marshmallow to have S’mores.
Bushcraft skill of taking care of their hatchet. We used the word respect as the character trait to teach the boys. As an activity we had the boys each make a cardboard hatchet that they could use to learn the different skills of how to properly take care of a hatchet and chop wood. For four weeks we practiced hatchet maintenance by teaching the boys to check the handle and ax head to make sure that they were safe. We taught the boys an acronym ‘S P A M’ to illustrate the safe use of a hatchet.
- ‘S’ means surface–what kind of surface are they chopping wood?
- ‘P’ means the piece of wood they are chopping.
- ‘A’ is the air around them. Making sure they are clear of anyone or anything around them.
- ‘M’ is for safe methods of shopping wood. The best method they we taught them to use, was taking a small stick to hold the piece of wood that they were chopping to prevent them from chopping off their fingers.
Our final activity with the hatchet was for the boys to build a little outdoor barbecue using tin foil pans. On the last night, using their outdoor barbecue fire pit they were able to use their chopped wood, build a fire, and then bar-B-Q little mini sausages. They roasted their sausages, and had roasted piggies on a Stick, which was exciting, not only to chop the wood to build the fire, but then to eat the roasted hotdogs.
What started out as a problem to solve became an opportunity to begin a brand new CSBM unit…Freedom Brigade #8118.
No comments:
Post a Comment