Knitting with little ones...

At our homeschool co-op, which started last Friday, in order to get your first choice classes, you have to teach a class.  If you don't the more popular classes fill up by 7 am of regular sign-ups (teachers get to sign up their kids a few days before.)  So, I decided to teach a beginning knitting class.  Lo and behold, it filled up with just teacher's kids and I had people begging to let their kids sign up (of course I let them.)

The prep for the class was a bit time consuming, but it was worth it to get my kids in classes that they were looking forward to (such as chess and dinosaurs.)  For each student I made a packet.  White wool (about 100 yards) was "hanked" onto a paper plate and then placed inside a gallon ziplock bag.  I cut, using the chop saw (yes dad I did it all by myself), quarter inch dowels into 10 inch segments.  I also got out our sand paper, butcher block bee wax, fimo, and wood glue.  For good measure I added a tie-dye kit.
Each kid got a wool package (spaghetti...I let them know that it was going to be their new friend hank...) two dowel segments (chopsticks they exclaim...to eat their spaghetti!) sand paper and set up a area to dye (one girl said "mom told me I was going to die my first class...I was a bit confused.")
Two girls would get a chance to dye at a time while the other girls would sand their dowels ("till they feel like silk"   I told them.)  Eventually, everyone dyed their wool, sanded their dowels, and used bee's wax to finish their sticks.  Fimo was handed out and everyone was told to make balls for the end of their sticks.  I packed everything away and the rest of the day proceeded as planned.

After getting home, I washed everyone's wool and hung it out to dry, baked the fimo for the ends of the sticks, and made little packets of wool and completed sticks for each kid in my class.
Tomorrow...In, around, through and off...we will learn the knit stitch...and maybe purl will visit too.