Fine Needlework

“We don't accomplish anything in this world alone ... and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one's life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that creates something.”

~Sandra Day O'Connor

“When you teach your son, you teach your son's son.”

~The Talmud

I first taught small children to sew on pieces of cut screen and with plastic needles and yarn. They were successful at it and learned the necessary hand eye skills to move in the using and managing of ‘real materials’. It was a successful prerequisite. I don’t know if the idea was mine or if someone taught me…I’m sure it has been done before, so I won’t take credit that bit of preschool curriculum.

I had great teachers as a child…my parents, my grandparents, friends-even my enemies. I was able to see what was woven in my spirit a teacher, friend and sister. I look at it with great appreciation for who I am now.
Sewing is an activity I love to have in my classroom.
At the end of the year the children have usually made a classroom tapestry…one gorgeous collage of individual threads all meeting together in a color splash community of art. At the end of the year the families all step back and marvel at its beauty.
I marvel through the process, though-How we all work together, agree on the colors, decide which way the thread goes….It’s a VERY big deal to kids…
And I agree whole heartedly with them, I must say.
But looking at their hard work pinned up on the all with four feeble thumb tacks…..well, it got me thinking….
The fine needlework of all of us….
It is-
A VERY
Big
Deal.