This week is our kids' knitting camp here at the shop. Because my kids are attending the camp, I decided to un-involve myself in the actual teaching! You know how your children can get more frustrated around you than they do around others... so Shawn is our camp director and Emily is her right hand. We've all been working for weeks to prepare for the camp - luckily there will not be much prep work before our August 3rd camp - since we've already done it all!
We had 6 kids this morning - all 3rd, 4th and 5th graders. Shawn took them all into the classroom and they started the day learning about different fibers. What an enthusiastic and smart group of kids! There was lots of discussion and laughter... they played a game where they matched up the picture of the animal with the type of fiber it produces. There was some confusion (and giggles, of course!) because an alpaca = alpaca fiber, a llama = llama fiber, a cow = cow fiber... NO WAIT! That's not right. A cow produces milk, and milk is a fiber in some yarns (like Kollage Half n Half). Anyway, there were lots of laughs about the "cow yarn".
They also learned that angora comes from an angora rabbit, but not from an angora goat. Cashmere comes from an angora goat. So it's not all as easy as it sounds, but they all mastered it and moved on to swatching. We have a great swatch notebook, and each child is creating one of her own. 
They won't finish this many swatches this week, but all the instructions are there and they can take it home and round out their own swatch notebook long after camp ends. Look at this concentration!
And smiles. We like smiles!
Tomorrow is dye-day. They will each be dying 3 small hanks of Cascade 220. These are some examples from Suzie, who is coming in to co-teach on this topic with Shawn and Emily. This will be a fun activity!
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