Sock puppet day Mrs. Logan’s fifth grade class! Their upcoming
fairy tale theater will feature either the Three Little Pigs or Little Red
Riding Hood, so they will get to do lots of funny voices and overact to their
hearts content.
Mrs. Logan didn’t have to ask me twice to come and bring my
fabric and craft leftovers. There were
pipe cleaners, googly eyes, plenty of fabric scraps to create with. Some kids had a bit of trouble visualizing
how to move from their two dimensional drawings of proposed sock puppets, to
actually creating a three dimensional puppet.
A few snips with the scissors on some pink felt is easy to demonstrate,
and soon pig ears, snouts, and creative curly tails were sprouting.
The
wolves grew fangs out of pointy fabric, and one girl even found some real fur
in my fabric scraps from a historical reenacting project. Her furry wolf looked great.
A boy wanted a hat and with glue and pins, we made one just
like his drawing. Now a hunter could
creep through the forest. The sock
puppets came out pretty well indeed.
One girl decided her Red Riding Hood needed a basket, and we
cut paper strips out of a spare manila folder.
She and many of her friends had never seen a basket woven out of strips
before. Goodness, when did we baby
boomers learn to make Easter baskets?
First grade? These kids can
figure out cell phones, photoshop and computers like lightning, but I am amazed
they’ve never seen a basket woven out of paper strips. Glad a boomer like me still has a few tricks
up her sleeve. 
Grannies, Red Riding Hoods and pigs are so much fun!
But the interesting aspect of the day was a new concept I
learned that had to do with sewing terms. A student wanted a gathered apron for Granny, and I found a
sewing kit in my purse. I showed her how
to knot the thread the quick and easy way, and take a few running stitches. The
girl mused that it should not be called a “running” stitch, but rather a “swimming”
stitch because the thread swims up and down along the fabric. True!
So it shall be throughout all time to me and anyone I can
influence. Tommy Smothers, are you
listening? Because of you no one in
America has frogs saying “croak” anymore.
Frogs say “ribbit”.
Now here is a better way to describe a sewing stitch. It swims up and down through the fabric and
should be called the swimming stitch.
Of course!
What a fun day we had creating and learning from each
other.
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