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Activity for 11 year olds
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When I attended elementary school, I always wondered why we had this 'silly' classes like technology, nature, sewing, etc. One day, when I was in fourth grade, I remember thinking it was very dumb for us to learn how to sew. My thoughts were something like: "My mom sews everything I need sewn, and if she can't, we can just take it to the store. I don't know why we waste our time with this"... Granted I may have been upset that we weren't doing all these activities for fun, but were reminded over and over about the upcoming evaluation and if we didn't know how to do X, Y, or Z types of stitches, we would not pass the class.
Well, I grew up and started overthinking why they would waste their and our time to teach us such 'chauvinistic' skills, perpetuating a gender role that, according to me and society, was not something we wanted anymore... How wrong I was! Now I know why they taught us these seemingly random skills: so we could do anything and everything for ourselves... and I don't mean this in a woman-empowering way, but as a way of saving money, time, getting into new hobbies, etc.
Knowing how to sew a hole or a button are minimum skills you need to survive unexpected situations. But if you go a little further and develop more in depth the needle and thread art, you will find yourself wanting to beautify curtains, pillows, clothing, etc.
To begin with this project, you will need access to an embroidery tutorial (YouTube, books, self taught), a piece of fabric, needle, and thread (and a needle threader so you are not spending precious long minutes trying to get the thread through the eye of the needle); or you can get the whole kit here.
You can make this your end of unit project, where children will chose something they studied (or have been studying) and make it into a pillow, clothing decoration, handkerchief, tie, etc.
The ideas I had was to make small pillows for a first communion present; make personalized bags or t-shirts for birthday parties; embroider table runnings or tablecloths for special occasions (liturgical living, anniversaries, saints' feasts...); to distinguish placemats, towels, etc...
Some common embroidery designs include:
- Saints
- Flowers
- Religious celebrations
- Names
Other design ideas:
- Specific animals (shark whale, weedy sea dragons, praying mantis, axolotl...)
- Recipes
- Prayers
- Famous art pieces (starry night, sunflowers, the waterlily pond...)
- Abstract art
The possibilities are endless. Please comment your ideas and techniques so we can all learn and grow in our community.
Thank you and God Bless.
Maria Ignacia