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08/03/2006: "summer camps"
this is part of my job that i love. here is my pajama pants class from a couple of weeks ago in their finished pants. ages 9-12. started with white muslin, which they dyed, stitched and customized all on their own. (gotta love the technicolor shoe choices as well!) this is the third year my friend jen and i have co-taught this class and i think it is our all time favorite.
today i had a group of 6-8 yr olds who made mouse finger puppets and quilts to go along with this story.
to make little mouse sized quilts, i ironed some heat-n-bond to a piece of white flannel and cut it in to 9 inch squares. then i set the kids loose with the scrap bin and said that they had to cover up all of the white and no overlapping. they cut squares, shapes, characters out of the prints and covered up the "glue". then they brought it over, i ironed it all together (with a scrap of muslin on top to catch the gaps) and tah-daah! it worked like a dream. the best was when moms showed up to see what they'd made. the class was titled "rhythm & blues". we created these class titles without having chosen the stories first (shhhh don't tell) figuring that since it could be any one of us teaching, we should have options. i went through all of my books looking for something music related and then realized that this story was perfect. little mouse was afraid of all of the night time rhythms (tap tap of the branch, wheeze wheeze of snoring) and it gave him the "blues" so he kept trying to climb in to bed with big mouse.
