Two weeks ago the boys had their first boys scout camp out.  Kat’s family and our family joined to get some projects done and to camp.  My dad helped the boys with all their flag requirements and with their tool assignments. (my father is a master craftsman)  I had printed out the tools that they boys had to learn and given it to my father in advance.  I thought that he would pull out all the tools and have them lined up but I was wrong.  He made a game out of it and had them each read a tool and then the boys had to “find” the tool in his shop. (he has multiple tools, in multiple sizes in his very disorganized shop).  It was kind of neat to watch them “hunt” for the tool and each time they found the one on the list they would cross it off and then learn how to use it properly.

It was then time for them to build their bookends and my dad pulled tools down one by one and asked “Do you know what this is?”  You know, for the most part it was pretty easy, screw gun, screw driver, nails, hammer. etc.  Then he pulled down a shiny silver clamp and asked “Do you know what this is?”  Kat’s son shouted out “It’s a Caliper!”  My dad laughed and said “No, it is a clamp and this is how it works”.

I don’t know if Kat knew what a caliper was but she gave her son the funniest look.  I knew what a caliper was because I was (pre-children) an Inventory Control Specialist and occasionally I would have to measure parts in the field.  Everything went fine and we never re-visited the caliper thing and I don’t even know if Kat remembers the conversation.

It was not until earlier this week that the whole thing came back to me.  Zach was having some issues on T4L so I told him to skip the lesson and I would help him with it when I was done doing what I was in the middle of.  Later that morning when I went through the lesson with him I was surprised to see that part of the lesson was dealing with measurement and a Caliper is not only explained but it is one of the questions they ask in the lesson.  To my surprise the photo on the lesson looked JUST like the clamp that my father had pulled down. I now knew where Kat’s son had heard the word and he really thought that the clamp was the caliper that he had learned about in his T4L lesson!

Here are the 3 boys in their tool lesson.. the little head you see is  Kat’s youngest who joined right in “learning about tools”