The Handwork teacher

I am a mother to two beautiful girls and I teach Handwork and Fine Arts in our local waldorf charter school in Arizona.

Monday, June 2, 2008

1st grade



I wanted to share what I did this year in Handwork with all the different grades
I will be changing some things next year...but just to share with those who are curious...

I will start with 1st grade...above you can see the books I used...they are a must!


we started our year with a story about a local brother and sister who were going to their grandparents farm.... 2 hour drive from the city to a town we locals are all familiar with for its clean air, farm land and snow.

on the farm they run into sheep...from here the story introduced sheep, wool fleece, spinning on sticks to make yarn and what we can do with yarn.

from there we made our own knitting needles.

I feel I need pictures to properly share this with you...pics to come....

what you need

dowels
sand paper
cement ground
bees wax
felt

we made the knitting needle ends from sculpty clay


next we learned how to make a slip knot.
Verse:
"Here is the lake...see the snake...grab his head and pull the thread." (pics to come)

Then we stared to finger knit a rainbow chain...this became the draw string for their handwork bags. (I pre made 24 bags in pink ) Pink and red are the colors for first grade...it is the color of the womb.

then we finger knit a golden chain that they wore home

Next we learned how to cast on....we cast on for about 2 classes.

Then we stared on our first project the CAT

cast on 14 stitches and knit a perfect square...to make a square take the bottom right corner and pull up to the top left corner... when the square make a perfect triangle...then you are done.

More info to come..............................

Bird
Flute case
Bear
Pouch
Puppet
Rainbow ball

6 comments:

Levin said...

i love the idea of making my own knitting needles, or rather getting the kids to. my nephew was lucky enough to have a teacher who was waldorf trained - she got her class to make knitting needles and they did sewing and embroidery too. jacob loved it. he still quite likes knitting.
l
x
ps what age do you recommend teaching to knit?

World Wide Alternative said...

Oh yay!
I can't wait to see EVERYTHING!
Thanks so much for sharing it all...Xxx
P.S. Keep up your green smoothies! Xxx

Teaching Handwork said...

Green smoothies are my sunshine wake up call in the morning...can't start the day without it.

and I would start to knit with ages 6 and up...a 5/4/3 year old can sew up a storm, finger knit, finger weave and wet felt. each at their own level

Maymomvt said...

how many days/week do you get with each class? My girls only made a flute case, ball, and a cat in first grade. They are pretty slow knitters, but even the faster kids only added maybe one more animal! They have handwork 2x/week.

Teaching Handwork said...

we have handwork 2 X a week for 45 minutes...minus the walk back and forth so that is more like 35 minutes

all the children made a cat, bird/dove, flute case and a bear or puppet. the faster ones (1/3 of the class) did the rest.

Lizz said...

Oh good, thanks for sharing!