My fourth-grade class whittled soap as a culminating activity to their fiction unit in Reader's Workshop.
In the novel The Tiger Rising, the main character Rob whittled wood in order to relax and express his thoughts and feelings. Rob never quite knew what he would end up with when he was finished...in fact his mother always said, "You could never tell what would come out of the wood. It did what it wanted and you just followed."
Learners ended up with some interesting objects. It was indeed a relaxing way to express their creativity!