Trish writes:
For the past three years I have participated in the Educator
Challenge to obtain Baby Lock sewing machine for my classroom. I was also
fortunate to find a local grant to purchase 4 additional machines, without these
I would never had the opportunity to have sewing in my FACS classes.
After basic lessons we did three service projects - pillowcases to nursing home
residents, travel pillowcases for children at battered women shelter, and baby
quilts for newborns in need.
What most people do not realize is this is just not sewing. When you are sewing the items you use much math (surprising how we can explain fractions when we sew), we have discussed health issues when making baby quilts - why babies are born pre-mature, the care a mother should do while pregnant; travel pillowcases and pillows for children at the shelter is an excellent time to discuss relationships, how to get out of a violent situation, how you can start over; and the pillowcases for the nursing home prepares students for what seems years away - the last years of our lives. They have gotten to know people in all of these groups and that was the best lesson of all!
What most people do not realize is this is just not sewing. When you are sewing the items you use much math (surprising how we can explain fractions when we sew), we have discussed health issues when making baby quilts - why babies are born pre-mature, the care a mother should do while pregnant; travel pillowcases and pillows for children at the shelter is an excellent time to discuss relationships, how to get out of a violent situation, how you can start over; and the pillowcases for the nursing home prepares students for what seems years away - the last years of our lives. They have gotten to know people in all of these groups and that was the best lesson of all!
NOTE from Josie: Thank you Trish for being our Guest Blogger. We appreciate your willingness to share classroom snippets from personal experience. We all benefit from your generosity. Hey, you also earned Education Challenge Points! Yippee! (see the previous blog entry).
No comments:
Post a Comment