Every Friday afternoon our students in grades 2,3,5 and 6 participate in 'Clubs' where they learn different skills from riding a bicycle to cooking. Our Craft Club have been working on a special project for the past 5 weeks.

As part of our Wanafunzi program our 5/6 students will be connecting with Avenel Primary School in Australia. They plan to share stories and make toys for each other. Our Craft Club have been busy sewing bags and dolls to share with the students at Avenel PS.

The Craft Club students are now confident with the new sewing vocabulary they have been learning such as needle, thread, cloth and stitch. We have been using kitenge (an African patterned cloth) to make bags. The students were a bit wobbly at the start and threading the needle was very difficult but they persevered and are now confident finishing off their sewing at home by themselves.

Asha measuring the kitenge cloth for her bag.

Each week for clubs homework the students have to answer two questions in their clubs books

1. What did you learn or practise?

2. What would you like to learn next?

Below are some of the student responses to these questions from Craft Club.

Miriam (Standard 5)

I learned how to make a person using sewing. First you need paper and on the paper you draw a gingerbread man. Then you take a piece of cloth and fold it and then you put the gingerbread man where you have the fold to see if it fits. Then you cut. After you cut it you remove the paper and then you sew. When you are sewing you leave a hole on the head to put the stuffing.

I want to learn how to make a nice t-shirt.

Asha (Standard 5)

I learned how to measure a piece of cloth. Our plan is to sew a bag. First you need a piece of cloth, tape, scissors, needles and thread. Then you can start to sew.

I want to know how to sew with a machine.

Isaya and Asha wearing their bags as hats!

 The students have some great ideas for Craft Club. They would like to learn to use a sewing machine, sew a t-shirt and sew some flowers out of material. We hope to be able to try some of these things before the end of the term when the Craft Club students will select a new club to join.

Asha and Sheila with their finished kitenge bags.

Miriam and Salama J cutting material to make a dress for their dolls.

Miriam with her finished dolls.

Wanafunzi Questions

1. Do you have some suggestions for the Craft Club? What else could they sew or make?

2. Students at STA can choose between lots of different clubs to learn different skills like cooking, bike riding, running, gardening and dance. Which club would you like to join and why? Is there another skill you would like to learn?

3. Reread the blog post and count how many nouns there are.

4. Your teacher will search Google for images of Kitenge cloth. Look at the colours and patterns. Take a white piece of paper and do your own kitenge design.

5. With help from your teacher, sew your own bag or doll.