Hi!
I’m starting as an after school crochet teacher soon and I need ideas for items to make with my Kindergarten through 8th grade students. While I know that I can definitely try doing amigurumi with my middle schoolers, I’m worried about my elementary students. I don’t want to give them any projects that are too much for them to handle.
So far for the younger kids, I can only think of a rectangle bookmark (to help them practice making stitches in a row), and granny stitch bandanas.
With the company I’ll be with, the students may have anywhere from 1 hour to 4 hours (over the course of 4 weeks) to work with me, so I can potentially work with the students on one project over the course of basically four hours (each class is one hour).
I just don’t want to have my students leaving my class feeling like they did nothing or that it was way too hard for them. I would prefer free patterns because any expenses outside of the hook and yarn is out of pocket!
I’m open to all ideas and will greatly appreciate any advice!
TYIA!!
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For the younger students, what about a heart garland? Hearts are super easy to make, but look impressive.
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My husband has k-5 in his summer program and I went in 2 days for 1 hour each… The youngest were barely able to understand a slip knot and how to chain so be prepared to not move much past that. Only the 10/11 year olds were able to figure out how to move on to sc and were able to do a row but then got lost at turning. One of them had already been crocheting for a bit and she had made scarves so she wanted to learn the MR. She did eventually get there and was super happy. But I will say that out of the 15 kids we had in the room, only 4 could do a sc by the end of the 2 days. The rest were either stuck on how to slip knot or how to chain :(
I do hope you have better results than I did! Would love to hear how it turns out.
For projects, I agree like a bookmark or maybe just a sc dishcloth as a super easy option? For a bit harder, maybe try to do something like a few granny squares to make into a little bag so they can do some stitching together too?
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Wow! Thank you for all of this information! It seems like a majority of my students will be 8-10 years old so I’m hoping that I can at least make a bookmark with them during my time with them then.
My biggest fear was that enough of them would pick it up quickly and get “bored” which is the last thing that I’d want for students who are paying to be there.
Thanks for the knowledge!!
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I’ll definitely add hearts to my list! I’m sure it’ll open up a number of new possibilities!
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I do have a heart in my shop that I had intended on teaching the kids. Mix of ch, dc and tc. Never got that far.
I think the hardest problem I had was the kids were all asking for help at the same time but didn’t want to listen and learn, just wanted me to do it for them so fingers crossed you have some help 
let us know how it goes!
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Thanks for the information! Luckily most of my students will be 3rd through 5th grade so I’m hoping they’ll be a little more independent or at least willing to try to learn on their own before asking for help.
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I mean, I taught my brother how to make a chain. You can tie it into a bracelet and add some accesories like beads(if you have any). Since they are spending 4h with you they could make a neclace? Its the easiest thing I can think of. For the older children, maybe a granny square or, since they know sc maybe try making bookmarks and/or like a coaster (coasters will take time but within 4 hours, for them it is possible ?)hope this helped
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