Adaptive Woodworking for Kids
Books by Jennie
Hammer, Saw, Drill:
Woodworking Together
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This instructional book guides adults and children through 7 woodworking projects, appropriate for ages 3-9.
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Woodworking with children is a fun, fulfilling, and educational activity that builds confidence in both adults and children.
Teaching children how to use real tools fosters respect, responsibility, and trust, through an experiential, tactile, physical activity. This enhances brain development.
Woodworking also provides opportunities for children to learn skills related to math, science, and art. The projects in this book are progressive: the easiest are first, and skills build on each other.
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This book was created in collaboration with preschoolers in VT.
Counting Through the Seasons​
Counting Through the Seasons is an interdisciplinary book that focuses on the following math concepts: counting, ordering, pattern, categorizing, symmetry, size, comparing, grouping, measurement, spatial relationships, addition...and let’s not forget zero!
The illustrations and accompanying questions also help children learn color recognition and improve their visual discrimination. The pages vary to include different levels of difficulty. The images for the book are based on science: the four seasons.
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Specific words are used in the book to increase science vocabulary. Each season in the book includes a page with an open-ended question meant to foster creative storytelling and develop language skills.
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This book was created in collaboration with preschoolers in VT.
Together:
Live, Learn, Play & Grow​
When children and older adults spend time together, what unfolds is the importance of relationships at any age.
This book highlights how we live, learn, play and grow with the help of one another.
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Made in collaboration with an intergenerational program at the Kendal at Hanover retirement community.
Steampunk Transportation
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This uniquely artistic book combines collage and photography to illustrate imaginative air, land, and water transportation in the steampunk world.
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What do you think a steampunk plane would look like? How would it operate?
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Use this book to inspire fun steampunk art and dress up activities with your own children!
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This book was created in collaboration with preschoolers in VT.
Trapezoids, 3s and 4s, and Happy, Silly Dinosaurs
This playful book about numbers, letters, shapes, and feelings, was made in collaboration with 50 preschoolers.
Jennie and the children combined favorite animals, toys and games into this educational book.
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This book was created in collaboration with preschoolers in VT.
Waiting for Daddy​
This book received special recognition at the 2015 NAEYC conference.
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An estimated 2 million children in the United States have a parent in jail or prison. How do these children cope?
With that in mind, artist and educator Jennie Harriman wrote and illustrated the children’s book Waiting for Daddy, a story aimed at helping children of incarcerated parents use creative expression to feel better.
Jennie’s co-author was Kylie Ann Flye, the girl upon whom the main character of Waiting for Daddy is based. She was seven-years-old when the book was written.
The book is illustrated with black-and-white photographs taken by Harriman.
The story is about a young girl who wants more than anything to be with her father, but cannot because he is in prison. She discovers many ways to cope with her loss through creative expression, the natural world, and play.
Each page of the story includes an open-ended question or an explanatory statement to help children express and share feelings and stories. Harriman has also included activities for parents and teachers to use with children experiencing loss, for instance, making puppets with faces depicting different emotions or planting a garden, as Ann did in the story.
The story was developed to use with children ages 3 to 8 directly affected by incarceration, and to help raise awareness and empathy for families in this situation. Additionally, Children who are separated from loved ones for any reason may find the book and its activities helpful in dealing with their emotions.