sewing pumpkins | Swoop into Kindergarten

You bet! Sewing provides young learners with an opportunity to strengthen fine motor skills as well as hand-eye coordination. Sewing also teaches patience, persistence, and it helps grow self-confidence. These projects are quite successful with a little extra preparation and a few extra sets of hands.

Our first sewing project was to sew a mini pumpkin using a bright orange dimple dot minky fabric. I chose the right size bowl as the pattern and then traced the pumpkins.

After cutting out the pumpkins, I used a black Sharpie to create a dot-to-dot on what would be the inside of each pumpkin.

This dot-to-dot technique gave the students a place to aim their needles. It also helped keep students moving along in a way that each would complete the sewing portion of the project in the ten minutes I had allotted for each rotation.

Next, I threaded each of the needles that I had and tied a knot at the end of the thread. This way my parent volunteers were ready to start the actual sewing process without wasting any time threading needles.

I gave students an introduction to handling the sewing needle. (Though not the sharpest needles available, the needles I like to use could cause a small poke.) I showed the students that placing their fingers on the eye of the needle is the easiest and safest way to hold a needle. Plus, it prepares them for sewing in the future when they have to keep the thread from pulling through the eye. In anticipation of this sewing activity, I placed some lacing cards in one of the Literacy Workstations so that students could practice the motion of sewing a running stitch using a plastic lace that would not cause harm.

I reviewed the running stitch, and the students were ready to go! All of these little preparations really helped the students have a successful first classroom sewing activity! The two parent volunteers were the perfect cheerleaders, encouraging the students and praising their focus and tenacity.