Nov. 26, 2007 - How to Make a 9 Year Old Girl Happy
Sewing!
At least this 9 year old!
This is not the best picture, but I had to share it because she absolutely loved making this scarecrow. I am so proud of her efforts. I think she did a great job! 
This is the 1st time that I let her use the sewing machine mostly unsupervised. If you can see the details, you can tell this is definitely a 1st for that. (She actually has used a sewing machine before - our Keepers girls made wall hanging quilts a few years ago, but it involved straight lines and much supervision.) The scarecrow is the fruit of a 3 week unit study on Seamstress and Sewing Machines. Alexis learned all the necessary parts of the machine, and enjoyed her time running it. We did not get to the hand stitching that I had hoped to work on with her. Hopefully we will have some time for that during the Christmas holidays.
The Good: The Best of Sewing Machine Fun for Kids was a good book for her to start with. I gave my review of it in an earlier post (and guess I should have waited until we actually tried it out) but I have to say that it was a big hit with my sweet daughter. I photocopied all the allowable sewing practice pages and she went to town using the machine with no thread. The author has several fun learning activities included. There are even a few small cute project in it too.
In Their Own Words: Betsy Ross - This was an easy reader. That worked out well because it gave Alexis more time to sew. An added bonus; since we visited Philadelphia over the summer, her memory was quite fresh of many of the locations mentioned in the book.
The Bad: 3 Weeks went by way to fast. I felt terrible putting the sewing machine away, but we had to get ready for guests at Thanksgiving.
The Ugly: Well, I would have to say it was reading about Isaac Singer. I knew that he led a colorful life, but had no idea just how much so until we read a short biography on him. Wow! That is all I can say. I will never look at a Singer Sewing Machine the same way again.
Anyway, again it was a fun 3 weeks and we are now moving on to The Jesse Tree and notebooking our state history!
