First Week of School....
Whew. I am writing from the end of the first week of school and it has been a challenging week. The MiMBY Girl, who over the summer got into the habit of reading in bed until late at night, struggled mightily to adjust to the earlier schedule, poor miss. Poor Mommy. Tears every day after school as small frustrations turned into dire events.
Summer classes ended well though. We did paper puppets and climbing puppets on Wednesday of last week and then an introduction to sewing on Friday. That class had a steep learning curve as I let the kids design their own creatures and then we worked on making a pattern and cutting out the fabric. I was panicked halfway through the class that they wouldn't leave with a finished object, but it all came together in the end, with an extra 40 minutes needed to get everyone on the sewing machine. We got some great stuff and here are a few:
Lily's one-eyed dancing monster
Oliver's cave painting horse
Katie's bunny
Kate's doll, pre-clothing
I missed getting a picture of Alex's bunny - he used a pattern from the book Cute Stuff and painstakingly worked through the entire sewing process with little trouble. I learned a lot about teaching kids with this class. They all came with very different ideas of what they wanted to sew and I probably should have had everyone do one pattern for the first time. However, the ownership when it's YOUR design carries you through the boring bits of the process, and I think that was true for the kids as well. They all proved extremely competent on the sewing machine and gave me all sorts of ideas for more classes.
One of the best things that came out of this summer's classes on a personal level was the MiMBY Girl's newfound and total absorption with making things. She helped prep for all of the classes, made samples with me, came up with her own ideas, and helped the other kids during class time. It was super to watch her enjoy it all so much.
I am planning to start after-school knitting club next week on Thursday, which is really the only day that works for us. Boy, has the weekday schedule filled up fast! I will post details on the Classes page and look forward to hosting all the knitters!