Stichin' Pillows in First Grade!

Recently, a good friend was telling me about a fascinating problem she had encountered in her professional circles: first-year med students who utterly lacked the requisite fine motor skills, highlighted by the fact that they couldn't sew stitches. Not at all. The friend went on to explain that, lacking subjects like home-economics, most schools were no longer really preparing students with the early fine motor skills needed to lay the groundwork for training doctors.

 
 Life skills, like sewing, are not something that kids should leave school without learning. Sewing used to be required, along with things like balancing a checkbook and a little basic cooking. That is why the Kindergarteners have a sewing table for choice time in art, and why my first graders just finished up sewing their first art class pillows.

Seeing the first grade pillows, some fourth graders mentioned having loved the sewing project, and wanted to know, could we sew again this year? "I love my pillow," said one boy, "and I still sleep with it in my bed."

Making artwork with a real, tangible product brings meaning and an enduring sense of success.

In this lesson students learn to thread a needle, trying techniques to smooth the thread to go though the needle's eye. They learn to pin multiple fabric layers, and to make stitches at regular spacing so that the stuffing doesn't fall out.

Students learn studio habits to carefully organize and keep track of their tools when they are using sharp objects, so that nothing gets left behind, so no one gets hurt by stepping on a pin or needle.

Many students added optional buttons or bows to the gorgeous fabrics, which were mostly upholstery textile samples donated by Burlington Furniture Company.

They have built pillows! And, along the way, they have built patience, concentration, self confidence, and dexterity, too.