Monday 9 May 2011

The Story behind the Socks!

Hello All!

This should have been posted last night, but it was dark and I couldn't get a decent photo of the layout - pink does not photograph well in artificial light!

I made it at Scrap Club yesterday. It was partly for a Challenge on Shimelle's blog, for (Inter)National Scrapbooking Day, but also because I have wanted to scrap this photo since the end of March, when it was taken.

This layout is really about the reason for the photo, rather than the photo's content.  The picture shows 11 of the Sock Creatures created by my lovely group of girls, on 26th March, when I taught a day-long workshop on creating Sock Creatures. 

However, the story-behind-the-photo is more than that.  For a start, this was my First workshop. It was the first time I have planned and taught a class of this kind to children.  I've taught adults before, as part of my job; I also helped in school for 5 years, while DS was younger, assisting with general maths, English etc, hearing and supporting the children's reading, helping in the "Design & Technology" lessons - anything from sewing to building models with pieces of wood etc, etc...  But this was my first children's workshop, thought up, planned and executed entirely by myself!  I feel rather proud of that - so this page is partly to document that fact.

The other half of the story, though, is about the students.  They were a great bunch of girls, ranging in age from 9 to 14.  Their skills varied enormously, with a couple of the older girls being pretty accomplished needle-workers, whereas two or three of the others struggled - one girl in particular.  However, with one exception, all the children took home at least one completed Creature, with several having a part-completed one, to take home and finish.  The "exception" did struggle a lot; her sewing ability was very limited and she had problems with planning and visualising the process of creating her creature.  She made a fairly major mistake, which I helped her to work round and rectify.  She had to unpick and re-stitch (I helped a bit with that too).  However, I was so impressed by her determination and effort - she may have struggled, but she persevered.  I sent her home with several pieces of model, drawings to help her attach head, limbs etc and sufficient bits & pieces to make it look nice.  She said her parents would be able to help her - I so hope they did! 

So, I was proud of me, but also of my students.  One young lady found a striped sock and turned it into a fabulous bumble bee; another made a cute monster, with a bow on its ear; there were several rabbits - all starting with the same design, but all so different and all so cute!

It was just a wonderful day and I really wanted to record it. 

I'm going to print this Post out and stick it to the back of the page, as I didn't have room to journal all this on the front - the journalling just says "My first Workshop Day, teaching 9-14 year-olds to make Sock Creatures. It was a great success and the 11 students completed 13 creatures betwen them, with two or three more taken home, to be completed there.  We had Fun!"  - that's all true, but I want to record the whole story for ever!

12 comments:

  1. What a fun LO Lizzie, and a great idea to put the journalling on the back! Hope you get the chance to do this again, since I do recall it being a HUGE success!

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  2. This is such a lovely LO to celebrate the class,Lizzie.

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  3. isnt it amazing how something so simple can lead to a new lesson learnt. love the lo and the sock animals.......all have that awww factor,
    jo xxx

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  4. loved reading your story behind the layout, sounds like the children really enjoyed themselves.

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  5. Great page with a lovely story behind it. I also like your title choice! The sock creatures all look really good, you must have been very proud of all the kids there! x

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  6. Great page, and I love how blog posts are such a perfect way to capture more indepth journaling.
    Rinda

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  7. What a lovely layout to celebrate their achievements. I bet they had lots of fun making them!

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  8. Love this layout Lizzie, love the title, love the photo and the colours.

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  9. Fab layout Lizzie and what a great memory to document :)

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  10. Printing our your post to pop on the back of the layout is an excellent idea Lizzie, as much as I try, I am finding that sometimes there is one story on a layout and the other on the blog and I really want both recorded :-)

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  11. Great layout, and what a fun class! Love your sock animals, Lizzie!

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  12. I remember you blogging about this class..what a great LO!
    Alison xx

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