Here's our embroidery class in full swing. We use the indoor play area of the foundation classes for our lesson, hence all the toy boxes in the background. The kids are very comfortable and sit and chat while they're working. They have settled into their needlework routine and are much more relaxed now than a few weeks ago.
I have adapted the lesson plan to suit their working speed and skill level. In the beginning I planned to introduce a new stitch every week but I soon realised that it would not be possible. The lesson time is just to short to get familiar with a stitch every week.
Now I have a sample of all the different stitches and every child decides when they are ready for a new stitch. They then choose the one they would like to learn and I teach it to them individually. This works a lot better than trying to get them all to do the same thing at the same time.
As you can see some children like to stick to one stitch and others are more confident and try a wider variety of stitches. I am happy with that. Karen, one of the mothers, volunteered to assist me, for which I am very grateful! She spends most of her time threading needles and sorting out knots and tangles.
We have three lessons left before end of term. Hopefully most of the butterflies and dragons will be finished by then. We plan to have a small exhibition in the school foyer in the last week to show of every body's handy work.
When I planned this course my main aim was to introduce embroidery to the young ones and to teach them to love it. I am not too concerned about perfect stitches and neat designs at this stage. If at the end of this course they decide they like doing embroidery and want to do it again (and again), I would have reached my goal. It is much easier to teach skill to someone who has the love than the other way around...
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