Bamford Primary School Craft Club News

Claire Hoey 15/12/10

We had our last craft club of the year yesterday. Having finished our knitted chain for the Christmas tree we just knitted for fun, some working on their sponsored knit and some knitting towards gifts for family members. Over the last term almost 60 different children have been to craft club and learnt to either finger knit or to knit on needles. At least a third of these children (mainly boys I would like to point out) have gone on to knit their own projects at home for fun. We are almost at the end of our sponsored knit I should know by next week how much we have raised. We have definitely raised enough to order the wool roving that we need to do a large wet felted project that we are planning for next term which is wonderful news. The children have enjoyed the knitting so much that when they heard we were moving onto something different they were disappointed that the knitting wasn't carrying on, so as well as Craft Club all afternoon on a Tuesday we are now starting a lunchtime knitting club so that they can carry one with that. At the moment we are toying with an idea for the children to have their own stall at the school Spring Fair to raise money for Craft Club. They will organise it themselves, deciding what to make and then making it, pricing the items, and running the stall - this will give them the opportunity to flex skills other than their creative ones! On Friday this week one of the older boys is coming into Class two to teach the younger children to finger knit, it has been wonderful seeing how patient the children are with each other and what fantastic teachers they make. They are all so keen to show other children how much fun it is to knit. I love the sharing and encouraging that is going on. I must say that this week I have learnt more from the children than the other way around. We received a wonderfully generous box of goodies for our club from The Craft Club Team, I opened the box and saw lots of unusual wool with pom poms all along it. My immediate thought was ' oh gosh that is going to be so hard to knit with what will we do with that!' but when the children looked in the box they were over the moon with the pom pom wool and they all wanted to get on with it straight away and experiment with the new texture and see how it would turn out both on needles and finger knitted. So the lesson learnt was most definitely 'don't hold back just jump in and enjoy!'. Claire