Hey Alex
I work with kids at wilderness skills organization. One of my programs is making bows for kids.
I use maple boards usually but lots of woods will work.
For a 14 year old who is new I usually go with a 20# bow.
For a 5 year old, 10# can be too much some times and making a selfbow that light is tricky, but its not too tough.
So for the little one I usually make a 50inch bow that hits 10-12# @20″. The young ones, depending on height, tend to draw around 16 inches so the bow at that draw is usually <10#.
With wood bows for kids its a good idea to tiller it much longer than the intended drawlength and back it with something like rawhide. Kids are so tough on their toys, Id have a heart attack if a bow broke in a kids hands. Tiller the DL long to protect against the inevitable overdraws and back it.
For arrows the 3rivers ones are good as DWC said. You can also save a ton of money by picking out the clean 1/4″ poplar dowels or using whatever straight shoots, like cane, mulefat, willow, etc are in your area.
What kind of tree you got?
