Christmas Craft for Inspiring Sewists

In another life, I taught biology. I am a teacher by nature.  I have     transitioned from teaching biology to high schoolers to teaching life skills to a toddler. One of these life skills is called the Pincher Grasp. Apparently it is critical to help your child hone their pincher grasping skills in order to prepare them for writing and feeding themselves without making a huge mess of things. Making this beautiful garland is a fun, relatively safe way to help your toddler practice this life skill. 

Maria has watched me sew for a long time and always wants to “help.” Her helping usually involved playing with and stacking buttons but today I let her take on a craft of her own. We made Christmas garland for her tree using cut up paper straws and pompoms. First she organized the pompoms and straws (these could be whatever you want them to be…popcorn, beads, etc.) into each muffin tin by color and then using a large, rather dull needle, she strung the items onto embroidery floss. It took her quite a while to do it (teaching grit and endurance right!?).  Her dad and I helped her throughout the day (and to be honest did over half of it). She is so proud of her work and loved getting to “show her dad how to do it” when he got home from work.

She later tried to “help” her dad put up lights…not so successful..

She got to sew like mom and I got to get rid of some art supplies that had been lying around my house. Win/Win!