I never could relate to spring cleaning. The timing just never worked out for me when Evelyn and Wesley were young. March, April, and May were busy with culminating end-of-the-year school activities. I'd say summer purging was more the thing, out with the old, space for the new.
Now that both (yes, both!) my children are off to college, summer purging has turned to summer reminiscing. Anticipating Evelyn's homecoming, I dug up memory lane in my daughter's kindergarten box. Was it really that long ago that I used stitchery to help develop fine motor skills? Did I introduced embroidery to strengthen handwriting or did I use handwriting to strengthen embroidery skills? Now there's a question.
In either case, we did a little embroidery to embellish all subject areas. We stitched a color wheel and discussed the physics of light. We stitched texture as we discussed and observed the elements of visual art. We stitched the ABCs. And we stitched the world when we explored the complexities of geography.
Scraps of fabric, an embroidery hoop, needle and floss will get the process started. It will look funky at first but you’ll see huge progress over the years.
Both my daughter and my son stitched. Looking back their stitching proved quite academic. In the early years they strengthened hand-eye coordination, learned to slowly attend to detail, became comfortable with problem solving. This little habit of being was a way to bring shape to an original idea sparked from some bit of information they were learning to master. When we studied California history, we fashioned an elaborate quilt that stitched together their knowledge of geography in a way that meaningfully stitched what they had learned into their memory.
Embroidery is an art form and like all art forms is a language worth the student's attention. I say summer is just the space to introduce the art of embroidery.
– Sara