Alternate Routes is Side Street Projects’ creative woodworking program for kids age 5 to 11. Since 1997, we have brought the lost art of woodworking to literally thousands of children throughout LA County. Alternate Routes’ goal is to teach children how to use tools safely, effectively and (ultimately) independent of adult assistance. Classes are held in brightly colored mobile classrooms: renovated transit buses that house 10 woodworking stations custom made for children. Each station is equipped with hand tools, adjustable workbenches, supplies and materials: everything needed to create a multitude of woodworking projects. There are two artist-teachers per bus, providing an impressive 5:1 student/teacher ratio at all times.

Each class begins with the introduction of a new tool followed by safety demonstrations. Our methodology encourages children to examine the relationship between process and form, between technique and creativity. Alternate Routes teaches children that all these variables can exist simultaneously.

Alternate Routes is an enormous confidence-building program for young children. It gives them an early working knowledge of real tools, materials manipulation, and other processes usually reserved for “grown-up” artists. Alternate Routes’ curriculum is compliant with CA Standards for Visual Arts, and is also compliant with the State’s standards for Math and Science.

Kids make a variety of projects that increase in complexity as they progress through the program. They accumulate a working knowledge of basic woodworking techniques as it applies to art making, such as sanding, sawing, shaping, drilling, setting screws, using clamps, hammering, and engraving. All students start by making a basic name-tag, which introduces the mitrebox, backsaw, c-clamp, sanding block, and scratch awl. From there, new tools are introduced that correspond to more complex projects. There are dozens of projects to choose from (for both boys and girls). They range from things you'd expect, to things you wouldn't. Kids make cameras, and puppets, and frogs, and bugs, and rocketships, and cell phones, and motorcycles, and horses, and... well, we've sort of lost count. After a few sessions, kids are confident and competent enough to design and fabricate their own projects. This is program's ultimate goal.

“I can’t be an artist… I can’t draw.” How many times has this broad generality stopped kids from ever pursuing or studying visual arts? This is ironic, because most contemporary artists we work with spend more time at Home Depot than an art supply store. Alternate Routes shows children that art is more concerned with creative problem solving rather than accurately replicating the natural world in 2 dimensions.