First Grade Quilting

So, my question is this: have any ideas on what I should do with the kids? I was thinking of taking a quilt or two in to show them and then have them help me make a quilt (which we would then give to Ms. Zadi when finished...) I haven't yet taught my son to sew or do anything with quilting and don't know where to start with this age group. (6ish) I also don't know the name of the book...yet.

Can anyone help or give suggestions???

TIA!!! Sue With my daughter's first grade class we fused self portraits. We used fabric markers to write the name of the teacher and the school.

Lisa in Florida

I did something like this with DD#2s 2nd grade class. I think it was 2nd grade - it could have been 1st. It took quite a bit of time, because it grew beyond a simple demo - so make SURE you get help if necessary.

First I did a demo on what a quilt was. I took in lots and lots of quilts for them to sit on, wrap up in, and touch while I explained a bit about piecing and batting and backing. I had samples - pieced blocks for them to look at and quilted blocks so they could see the batting and backing. I took my trusty Singer featherweight and showed them how I pieced and how I quilted - I just made an "X" on a 2" x 2" sandwich for the quilting. I gave them each a couple of pieces of fabric and batting - just 2" x 2" - for them to have.

What I didn't count on was that everyone had to have their pieces "quilted". So, I sat in the back of the room for several hours, while the teacher taught, while each kid came up to me 1 at a time to have their samples quilted.

Then we made a quilt. The kids colored blocks with fabric crayons. I had parents help them iron their drawings to the fabric. Then we laid out the quilt - it was quite the undertaking. Not only did we have to arrange the blocks in a pleasing manner, we had to contend with whose block was next to whose block. I pieced it, but I said I was NOT quilting it and I would be happy to show someone how to tie it, but I was NOT tying it. I did bind it. Some of the other moms organized a tying party. The quilt was auctioned off at the annual silent auction - the class parents got together to buy the quilt to give to the teacher.

It was a huge success - and fun - but it was a lot of work. All of the kids, including the boys, were very interested in the whole process.

-- Teresa in Colorado snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net

I don't have a 6 year-old around to interview - are they into launching rockets and doing fine-skill things yet? Maybe they would learn a bit about quilting if you showed up with inch squares of lots of fabrics, and quilt patterns printed on paper to fill in by gluing the pieces? Can they take a square and cut it into triangles? I send my samples of fabric from the mail to the local school when learning the letter "Q" but have no idea what they do with them. Polly