Last week, I taught a 3 day crochet class to students at my elementary alma mater: St. Mary’s Catholic School! I was extremely nervous for this opportunity even though I knew the teachers, what the environment was like, and somewhat of an idea of who the students were. When I reached out to my former principal, we organized the dates and times of when I would be joining, as well as the general age range, but we did not establish the specific ages of the students I would be instructing. Due to this, I decided to over prepare so I would be able to work with whatever was thrown at me.
When explaining/demonstrating crochet to people before, I would only ever do so very minimally and with individual people. I was diving into uncharted education territory for me. I not only needed to learn how to teach crochet to a larger group of students, but also do young children whose hand sizing and experience varied. I came to learn that most of my students did not know what crochet even was. To conquer this challenge, I started each section of my class by presenting students with past projects of mine. On the first day, I brought in my flower afghan, granny square butterfly, and Perry the Platypus amigurumi figure. Allowing the students to physically hold the pieces in their hands not only helped to introduced crochet to them, it motivated them to try hard techniques as they realized they could have impressive outcomes.
The real challenge I faced was trying to prepare for the level the students would be at before I actually attended the class. I did not know the specifics of the students I would be teaching, so I prepared for the ages between 1st and 6th grade. I spent a large amount of time researching which projects would suit each age range and which projects would have the simplest and easiest amount of stitches. In preparing for 1st-3rd grade, I bought large crochet hooks to compensate for small hands to be able to fit ergonomically and prepared an extremely simple pattern of only chain stitches to be made into necklaces/bracelets. For the 4th-6th grade students, I was prepared to instruct them in double crochet on Day 1 to make a slightly harder amigurumi project on Day 3.
I’m extremely relieved that I prepared for both of these age groups as my students fell into the middle of these preparedness ranges. The principal selected students who she felt would engage with the content and would enjoy the process of crocheting, this led to the students being between the ages of 3rd-6th grades. Since the age range was so varied, I decided to simply start from the basics and introduce the all of the students to simple chain stitching before we advanced or branched off to different skill levels. Every student was extremely engaged on Day 1 as they were learning new skills and working with colorful yarn. I’m also glad we only started with chain stitching as the learning curve was slightly more difficult for older students than I had anticipated. By the end of Day 1, each student had created a crochet necklace using chain stitches and threaded beads onto their yarn.
Day 1 Outcomes
On Day 2, I came even better prepared as I had experience working with the students. The night before Day 2, I precut yarn balls so I would be able to simply pass them out and get straight to work. On Day 1, I took my time to cut yarn for each individual student, which did in turn give me a chance to get to know each student better. My goal for the second day was to teach a new stitch and create a rectangle of double stitches to able to tie into bows and bowties. This goal was somewhat met, but not quite as collectively as the day before. Some students faced difficulty with motivation as they happened upon a harder technique. The act of finding which stitch to crochet into proved to be difficult for the slightly unmotivated students. I also realized it can be quite difficult to teach an entire technique to students alone. However, each student gave it their best effort in their own way. 1 student proved to be progressing rapidly and showed great interest in crocheting. She handled learning the double crochet easily and even finished the bow within the allotted 1.5 hours.
Day 2 Outcomes
Student’s Finished Bow
By Day 3, I had decidedly understood where each student was at in progressing their skills. My original goal for Day 3 was to have every student create a granny square butterfly, but I realized that not everyone was quite to that skill level. I decided to meet students where they were at interest and skill wise by instructing everyone on how to make a simple chain snake using the stitches we learned as a group, and giving the students who were more advanced the option to create the intended granny square butterfly. Out of the 8 students I had, 3 were willing to push and make a 3d project. I sat with the slightly advanced students and instructed them while simultaneously helping the other students as questions occurred. This resulted in better overall engagement as students got to decide which project to create. Both sets of students were proud by the end of the week to have accomplished making a recognizable animal! The 1.5 hours was not enough time to fully create the butterflies as they were still in the process of memorizing stitches, but they did finish the innermost section of their butterflies and I did not want them to go to waste, so I am completing the outsides of the butterflies and returning them to the students so they will have a finished product as well.
This class is truly one of my proudest experiences I’ve throughout my Resident Expert and being able to see the outcomes of my work and dedication through the years be passed on, even just slightly, to young students was very fruitful and heartwarming. I cannot thank St. Mary’s enough for this opportunity; it only felt right to instruct students from this school as I am on the cusp of graduating high school.
Day 3 Outcomes
The Learning Repository 