Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Teaching Children to Love Stitching!

I started organizing a new class, after being asked last fall to create an embroidery class for children.  I have started making up cards for the children to keep, that will have the stitch steps illustrated on them, so that children can follow with yarn, through holes in the cards.  Now, the brain learns best when you hear something, do it with your hands, and repeat it with your voice.  Its a three prong approach, and works well for children.  So, along with the cards, I want to come up with rhymes to teach the stitches.  For example, with the basic running stitch, the card will have a series of holes labeled 1 and 2.  The rhyme is, "up through 1 and down through 2; and that is all you need to do!"

Now, I am thinking of sticking with 5 of the more basic stitches seen in Medieval and Renaissance embroidery-running stitch, chain stitch, split stitch, satin stitch and stem stitch.  This should give the young ones a decent understanding of basic stitch mechanics.  The hard part is coming up with rhymes that are easy to say and remember, fun and help with the dynamics of each stitch.

Anyone have input on this idea or suggestions?

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