For over a year now we have been running an after school craft club at our local primary school. At first we were over run with children, but now it has settled down to two groups, one of 5-7 years old and the other 8-11 years. Over the last year we have tackled, hand-sewing, machine sewing (bigger ones), felting, weaving and we are now on knitting.
We have experienced crafts people teaching the children thier skills. At times it has been tricky getting the younger ones to sit down still for an hour after school..especially nearing the end of term! However, over the last year we have noticed how improved their fine moter skills and concentration skills have become.
This term we decided to tackle knitting..we started off by teaching the children finger knitting, then we moved on to french knitting and made our own knitting dollies. This gave the children an opportunity to get to grips with using wool, so that when we started knitting with needles, they had a basic grasp. Over the last few weeks we have been teaching knitting with needles and we are all so impressed how well the children have done. They all found working with the needles quite difficult to begin with, but after a few weeks and bit more practise they have all mastered knitting with needles.
It is so lovely for all of us to see this improvement and skill development in the children, it’s also important these skills get passed on. I know through-out my life, craft has been something I have been able to use to calm and ground me, when i’m doing any sort of craft I feel it’s is my own form of mindfulness -important in this busy world to teach our children these skills!
