Not quite a teacher

Now that my big girl is getting a little older (5), I've started to teach her how to sew. One day hopefully I'll be able to teach my crazy 2 1/2 year old too, if she likes. I first started thinking about actively teaching her skills when we had the following conversation soon after she started kindergarten:

M: "Mrs T said (blah blah)..."
Jo: "oh really" quizically
M: "Yeah, she knows lots of things... more than you"
After being hastily warned by her father that she was playing with fire, she attempted to remedy the situation:
M: "well, you could know more stuff if you were a teacher... or maybe you could be a teacher's helper"

Great. So not only do I not know "lots of things", but I'm also not up to being a teacher, but possibly a teacher's aid! Hmm... the days of my working career when I knew things that other people wanted to know seemed even further away after that conversation! When my ego recovered and we were having a cuddle, hungry for knowledge as always, she told me that she wanted me to teach her things...

OK then, lets start with sewing.

We are very lucky to have a great kindy class as our first experience with big school. The kids all seem to get along well and the parents are lovely too. My girl has made two best buddies who are both great girls and together we call them the three amigos. One of the girls was having a birthday celebration on the weekend and we'd decided to make her a beenie bear. We'd made the other little amigo one for her birthday recently too.



So here she is embroidering her friend's initial onto a piece of felt to be stitch onto the bear's chest by me. I've got to say that as rewarding as it is teaching her, there are also many moments when I have to let go of ideas of perfection, grit my teeth and just let her go with it! I'm sure other parents will identify with this too!

I didn't get a picture of the finished bear but it was one like this:



In other kiddie craft news, the book below was given to her for her 5th birthday. It's a step by step learn to draw book. I have a strong memory of having a similar book as a kid and drawing kangaroos from it.






Here are the finished cute little snails. I'm gearing up for some craft sessions in the approaching school holidays, so if anyone has any tips or suggestions please let me know... and I'd better get into teacher mode again too :-)



Post script: While I was writing this post the 2 year old ripped up the snail drawing... keep calm and breathe, mother, breathe