Homemade knifty knitter!

I just made a Knifty Knitter! Basically an easy to use knitting loom, Knifty Knitters are a great fine motor and concentration activity for children (and adults, too!). Ever since I saw this post on Craftzine, I've been thinking of ways to make knitted wrist warmers with my Lunch Bunchers at school.

Whenever it rains, I bring an indoor project for us to do together. It's gotten to the point that the children actually hope it will rain, and rejoice when it does, so we can do another project together. I will have to post some photos of our past activities. One of the first things we did was finger knitting. Only involving yarn (I chose some variegated acrylic to make things more interesting) and your fingers! The children loved the project, though they only made "bracelets." Since then, they occasionally ask me if I will teach them "real" knitting. I only have an hour in which to teach them a project, start to finish, including clean up time. So, I'm not sure we're quite at the point where I can teach them knitting with real needles. But Knifty Knitter, or loom knitting, we can do! I bought a GIANT skein of fun coloured, variegated yarn and am going to split it into equal balls so the children can make little wrist warmers for themselves. I'm more than halfway into my first one, and could barely stop to write this post! I think they will really enjoy this! Best of all, including the fantastic yarn, this project will cost only $1.25 per child. If you'd like to make your own knitting loom, here's a basic tutorial. I will post photos when I make the rest for the children.

Make your own Knifty Knitter
(for child size wrist warmers)

Materials (to make one loom):
5 Low temp glue gun sticks (the oval kind, about 5" long)
1 pvc pipe "hub" (hunt around at your hardware store, it's with all the elbow shaped sections, only this piece has no screw threads, mine 2.5" in diameter and about 1.5" tall)
duct tape (coloured would be fun!)
scissors
Glue dots (optional, but quite helpful)

Here's what you do:

1. Cut the glue sticks in half so you have 10 sticks, each about 2.5" long.
2. If you are using glue dots, evenly space 10 of them along one edge of the pipe. This will be the "top" of your loom.
3. Stick one glue stick half to each of your glue dots, leaving about 0.5" space at the bottom, so that about 0.75" sticks up beyond the top of your loom. These are the pegs around which you will wrap your yarn, so don't make them too short or your knitting will easily slide off. Of course, don't make them too long either or it will be difficult to actually knit.
4. Once the sticks are held in place by the glue dots, use the duct tape to hold them on tightly. I pressed in the edges to really prevent any wiggling. Align the edge of the tape with the top edge of the loom. You will only have about 0.5" to wrap under the bottom edge.
5. Wrap a second piece of duct tape around, this time aligning the edge with the bottom of the glue sticks. This will generate about 2" of tape hanging off of the bottom of your loom. Cut slits in this tape to allow it to fold nicely into the inside of the loom. Stick down each of these "flaps."
6. Make sure the tape is all stuck down so it won't catch on any of your yarn, and you're DONE!

If you make a loom, I'd love to see it and photos of what you make!

Busy, busy, busy

T and I have been quite the busy bees lately. Since we got back from our short break, we've been constantly working on stuff! We are preparing for my upcoming craft fair, the Downtown Holiday Market, which is in 3 weeks. Crafting has been going at a fairly steady pace, though it will be slowed significantly when we leave for our Thanksgiving vacation on Tuesday. Meanwhile, I have to prepare for my upcoming Montessori weekend seminar, and T has class all day, every day this weekend. Of course, I've also been working on lessons for the classroom and have plans for little "love leaves" as Thanksgiving goodies for the children.

This week, I created 2 new lessons for the children. A corn painting lesson is on the shelves until Thanksgiving break, and I prepared a special rainy day activity for the Lunch Bunchers on Thursday.
Corn painting involves a printout of a corn image, (with individual kernels), qtips cut in half, a green coloured pencil and a yellow stamp pad. The children use the qtip to stamp little yellow circles into each of the kernels. Then they colour the leaves green. If desired, they can cut out the whole corn shape, which can then be posted on our landscape bulletin boards as though it's growing out of the ground.

For our rainy day activity, I made cinnamon clay for the children to make an aromatic garland for the classroom. I brought letter and leaf shaped cookie cutters and we spelled out "give thanks" with a few leaves for spacers. The children loved the activity (since we no longer have play dough out on the shelves) and it made the classroom smell delicious. Of course, the children took home the extra clay.

Cinnamon Clay Recipe

Ingredients:
2 bottles ground cinnamon
1 bottle white school glue
1 cup applesauce
1 cup flour

In a large bowl, mix the applesauce and as much of the glue as you can dump out of the bottle. In a separate, smaller bowl, combine one and a half bottles of cinnamon with about half the cup of flour. This will help make it easier to mix into the applesauce/glue mixture. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet. The cinnamon will cause billowing dusty clouds if you add too much at once. When all the dry ingredients have been mixed in, if it is still sticky, add more flour. Flour a clean surface well and knead the dough. It should be approximately the same consistency as Crayola Model Magic, only heavier. Separate dough into balls for distribution to children and pat flat with the palm of your hand. Use cookie cutters to make shapes.

I made a test batch of letters which were slightly less than 0.25" thick. They were a little brittle, so with the children, we made our shapes 0.25" thick. They are drying over the weekend, hopefully they'll be done by Monday so we can string them up!

Aha! moments

This is my first post from my phone! Fingers crossed that it works well. My little friends and I made some breakthroughs in learning today. There really is nothing better than being part of a child's aha! moments. Well, maybe getting a spontaneous hug and kiss on the cheek from a 4 year old.

This message was sent using the Picture and Video Messaging service from Verizon Wireless!

Halloween Crafting

A peek at what I've been working on this week. Last night, Nicole came over and we worked on making 50 of the little Sculpey pumpkins you see in the dish at the far left. They're actually little pencil toppers, waiting to be popped onto cute Halloween pencils. Those will be our little gifts to the students in the art class we teach together. In the middle are pins backs, waiting to be hot glued to the backs of the wooden pumpkins in the bowl at the right. It was quite difficult to track down enough of those wooden pumpkin shapes at 7 different Michael's stores! I spray painted them orange first, then drew faces and details with paint pens and then finished them off with a coat of (supposedly) reflective spray paint. My hope is that the children in my class will be able to wear them pinned to their costumes for extra visibility and safer trick-or-treating. I've packaged them in little cello bags tied with twine and a tag explaining their purpose.

Also, a quick thank you to my goody goblins (Mom and Sneetch!) for delivering the goody gourds to GHS early this morning. I hear they were received well and enjoyed!

This is the way we wash our hands...

That's my view about 40% of the time I'm at work. Sometimes it's the boys' bathroom, which is right next door. Because this is my unofficial post, I do a lot of bathrooming related reminding; remember to wash your hands, please turn off the water while you rub your hands, let's sing a hand washing song.

We ask the children to sing a song to themselves while they wash their hands to make sure they are washing their hands for a reasonable amount of time to get most of the germs off. The suggested song has been Happy Birthday, but I think it may confuse the birthday issue, so I prefer this one, sung to the tune of "This is the Way We Wash Our Clothes":

This is the way we wash our hands,
Wash our hands,
Wash our hands,
This is the way we wash our hands,
So they're nice and clean!

In general, the time I do spend in the classroom has been alright. The class is definitely not normalized, which is to be expected. What I didn't expect was how tired I would be! Of course, everyone warns that the first month and possibly first 6 weeks will be tiring as the foundations are set with each individual child and then the group as a whole. The integration of the new children is a slow process, but the reward of a normalized classroom will be well worth the work and wait. I thought that managing my own classroom of 19+ children who were all 3 or 4 years old would have adequately prepared me for this. Was I ever wrong. Maybe the difference is that this year, the room is not "mine" in the sense that I am not the lead teacher. It is not up to me to set the ground rules or organization of the space, physical or interpersonal.

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by it all really. Being a very sensory person, I think I am more easily over stimulated, by sounds, sights, touches. In an as yet non-normalized Montessori classroom, those things abound. With no breaks in the day, barely a chance to get a sip of tea or run walk quickly to the bathroom, at times I wonder what I'm doing. Besides, I am always thinking about my classes, homework and upcoming exams in the back of my mind. To be honest, I relish those frequent trips to the bathroom hallway for the quiet and time for me to stand still for a few minutes.

More Montessori goodness

I've been getting increasingly excited about my Montessori training program. Classes start in just about one month! I preparation, I've already bought (and started reading) my books. I've also been thinking about lessons and doing a little making. As part of my cleaning and packing up my crafting room process, I've decided that I need to make some things to use up those awkward pieces of fabric. You know, those pieces that you *can't* throw away, but aren't big enough for what you really want to make? I have a lot of those. Many I have already 'gifted' on to other crafty friends. Here are two projects I made recently for my friend Allison's Montessori classroom.
The first is a fabric matching lesson. I found four fabrics of different textures and colours. I cut out small rectangles from each (traced a box of chalk as a pattern). Then, I cut out rectangles of a tan twill fabric and sewed them together by edging with some twill tape. There are 4 pairs of little matching rectangles which can be placed with the tan side up for a simple matching activity.
The second is a plant watering apron. The idea came from Montessori By Hand; a wonderful blog full of Montessori ideas. Her apron is beautiful, but I was concerned it was a little 'girly' for the boys' taste. So mine is hopefully more gender neutral, though it uses the same basic ideas. Each morning, the teacher uses the blue flowers to mark plants who need watering. The flowers have a loop of elastic on the back to fasten them to the green straw 'stems.' When a child chooses the plant watering activity, they put on the apron, (which has velcro closures at both the neck and waist straps) and fill the watering can (not pictured). The apron has slots at the top for red "I've been watered" flowers. When the child has finished watering a plant with a blue flower, he can replace the blue flower with a red one. The blue flower can be placed back in the slot on the front of the apron to leave both hands available for carrying the watering can.

Montessori magic?

Edison -

I just finished watching this video about a cute little boy named Edison. It's a half hour "day in the life" clip showing how the Montessori method can be used in the home to facilitate and promote independence. Emphasis is placed on incorporating the child into the family routine, as the father states, "not around him."

I'm so excited!

I received an acceptance letter from the Montessori certification school I applied to for this summer! I didn't send in my final piece - the dreaded Personal Statement - until the Weds. we left for Disney World. But I got a call from the Center Director last Monday hinting that my packet would be in the mail soon. Thursday night, T brought up the mail with my packet in it! I've already ordered all of my books, minus one that is out of print which I am considering just borrowing.
So, I have another full school year of getting "love letters" (and drawings) from little friends! I can't wait to get started making my original lessons and reading everything about Maria Montessori and her genius program. These days, since I've been back to my regular schedule of being with the children in the afternoons, I realise how much I did miss them. Some of them can be a handful at times, but we haven't had any major outbursts (yet... I hope I haven't just jinxed us) and it's so relaxing to watch them napping. The best part is waking them up one by one and seeing each one wake up with a big smile; refreshed and ready to play the afternoon away!

5 days!

Today is the last day of Spring Break Camp. Sorry I've been MIA a long time, while the auction took over the world. Let's just say it was rather intense there for at least a week. I had a week to catch up on sleep and get my health back in order before Camp started. A week to plan the camp, which I had only half-planned during the onslaught of auction tasks. But now, on the last day, I'm feeling quite good about it. I had the good sense way back in January to plan for an outside group to come in to entertain the children. After some struggles with my first choice, I found a suitable alternative, which as turned out amazingly well.

We've had a lovely lady come in each morning to entertain the children with hands-on Mad Science. She teaches them real science while keeping them involved and engaged via really cool projects and activities. This is just the way children should be introduced to an academic subject, I think. She has the children so interested in learning, the camp has actually become educational! While she runs her program in the morning, I have plenty of time to get myself organized for the afternoon.


I can't help but want to have equally cool (if not as educational) fun projects for the children on my end. We started the week with a pillow case decorating project. This is the second year I've done this same activity, but learned from last year. Last year I made throw pillow style cases for each of the children, out of very nice (but not see-through) Osnaburg fabric. I bought many, many colours of Sharpies and fabric markers and expected the kids to go wild drawing and decorating their 20" square blank canvases. The whole project took them about 20 minutes. Many of the children just scribbled colours (and these were not our youngest ones!) and declared themselves done.

This year, I made regular, bed style muslin pillowcases and by accident (my fabric wasn't wide enough) had to add on a strip of green quilter's cotton. The green was a lucky, perfectly sized remanant which fairly accurately matches our school's shade of green and the main fabric is the cheapest muslin available. The benefit of the cheap-o muslin is that it's see-through. So I printed simple, generic pictures of animals, dragons (our school mascot) and other child-tracing-friendly images. The children slid the drawings into their pillows and coloured them in, some traced the images first, others just coloured. Both ways, they turned out beautifully. The younger children drew free-hand, their imaginations uninhibited. The oldest children chose more intricate images to trace carefully and then colour in, sometimes complete with shading! The first day, I gave them 20 minutes to work on their pillows which turned out to be way too short. They've been working on them during down time all week long!

What is the purpose of the pillows? Each day, we have "rest & relaxation" time while they watch a movie. The youngest children really need this time because they are keeping up with the older ones all day long. We set out gym mats on the floor, let them take off their shoes and lie down to watch. The pillows provide an obvious boundary so they don't crowd each other, can be sat upon, rested on or used for a clandestine nap.

Buttons, buttons

We celebrated Valentine's Day at school today. The children were all excited for the special day. I think they were as excited to give out the goodies they'd brought as they were to receive. It was nice to see that. They really were delighted to go around and pass out their little cards, placing each one into someone else's bag.


For my part, I came up with what I wanted to make for the kiddos just 2 days ago... Not the best plan given the rest of my schedule for the week. T very graciously helped me when I was still not done in the wee hours last night, buttoning and snipping loose threads.

The idea came with a bit of an ulterior motive. Few of the children in my class are able to button up their own pants after using the bathroom. I wanted a goodie for them that didn't involve food, and while playdough was going to be it, I decided that was a bit lame, and I'd have to buy some kind of cute containers anyway. So the fact that these Tic Tac Toe boards are totally buttony (including the button closure on the pouch), is really my way of getting them to learn how to button. Hopefully, it's a cute and fun enough way and maybe they'll just enjoy putting them on and taking them off. Since it's usually a 2 player game, it has the added (potential) bonus of getting them some quality time with someone, too.