Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Last Minute Works for Us

Last week at Cali's Kindermusik class she was given homework. She was responsible for making a boat. She could make it any way she chose out of anything. There weren't really any rules. It isn't even going into water. We had grand plans for getting it done right away but well, if you know this family than it's no surprise that I am here writing about this project being last minute for us.

Another thing most people know is that I collect driftwood and sticks. Because we found ourselves with only an hour or so to get this project done before Cali was off to bed, we poked out head outside and found a piece of somewhat flat driftwood. We had a nice driftwood stick and we even had a few green sticks left from Cori's snowshoe project a while back. That one we bent to help with the mast.

I told Cali she could use fabric or paper, anything she wanted to make the sail. She came back with a couple balls of yarn. I was surprised. We tied one end of the yarn and she weaved in a figure eight pattern between both sides. She chose the colors and decided she would go in a pattern of color. I helped her by holding the boat while she weaved. I reminded her often to pull tight and learned that the shorter pieces of yarn worked better.

She reminded me often not to help; she would tell me when she wanted help! At first I reminded her of the direction she should be going with the figure eight. it didn't take her long to get it down. She even recognized when she was getting wonky.

Before she would consider it complete she dug through a jar of costume jewelry. She claimed she was looking for something pirate-y. She came back with the multi-colored flower which she insisted matched her yarn choices perfectly.

I love this boat and kindly asked her if she would gift it to me after her class. She told me she would and now I just have to find a home for it! I love it!

3 comments:

Sandy said...

That is so cool! Well done. I think you have a designer on your hands.
I love the yarn choice. I don't think it would have been half so interesting if it were fabric or paper.
Hope she gets lots of praise for it at school.
Sandy in the UK

softearthart said...

Is it not cool, when you can step back and let the child do it, yet be there to help if needed, cheers Marie

Grace said...

That boat is awesome!