Teaching Children to Knit

I've been teaching classrooms of children to knit for several years now... here are a few things I have learned along the way.

I always have the kids make their own knitting needles first (see Kids Knitting by Melanie Falick). I used to have the children make polymer clay balls with different colors of polka-dots but then you have to have a "cheat sheet" listing whose colors are whose and that makes it complicated. I have switched to having everyone glue on a small acorn cap to the end of each needle and writing the initials of the child down near the pointed end with a red sharpie.

I used to use beeswax salad bowl finish (by Clapham's) to finish the needles but I found that kids usually put on too much and it never gets rubbed in all the way. Sticky sticky. This year we used grapeseed oil and it worked beautifully. You can only get a little bit on your fingertips at a time (I poured some into a dish and passed it around) and it gives the needles a beautiful shine. I keep extra sandpaper and grapeseed oil around at all times for people who need to do a little extra sanding and finishing. Usually, the children don't understand the benefit of having their needles really smooth until they experience having the yarn catch on a splinter or rough edge.

I have each child keep his/her knitting needles and ball of yarn in a brown paper lunchbag. These fall over easily so I put them all in a large bin. I have each child write his/her name on the bag and then decorate the bag with stick crayons on one side. Decorating the bag with a picture makes it much more distinctive and you're not searching through a pile of bags looking for a small black name.

Now... this is something new that I learned today. IT REALLY HELPS to write the verse you are using to teach the children to knit on the other side of their brown paper bag. That way, they always have it handy and they can use it when they forget what step comes next. THIS SIMPLE STEP changed my classroom today from a group of 13 children who needed help with their knitting constantly to a group of 13 children who kept saying, nevermind, I figured it out, I don't need help anymore. Amazing!

We are using the verse from A First Book of Knitting for Children:



Under the fence,
Catch the sheep,
Back we come,
Off we leap.

I cast on for every child using the knitted cast-on. 8 stitches. 10 meters of yarn. This is plenty to make a bookmark (our starting project -- doubles as a holiday gift) and having a short row gives a fast feeling of success.

I tell them the verse first and I tell them that there are 4 steps to learning to knit and that you do the same four steps over and over. The verse will help them remember the steps. Then I put my hands on their needles and hold them and they put their hands on their needles lower down (farther from the pointed end) and I say the verse one line at a time and explain each step and demonstrate as we go. I do the entire row of 8 stitches, saying the verse each time and having the children feel how the needles are moving. I bring the yarn forward between the two needles for the "Catch the sheep" line but that is the only part I do alone. They have their hands on the needles so they are following along with me. (I used to knit on my own needles with the children beside me but that didn't work at all... they never were able to figure out what I was doing. So I have learned to do it this way.) After I get to the end of the row, I show them how to switch the needles to the opposite hands and begin again and leave them to do it on their own. This is essential because they will be too timid to try it alone unless you stand up and walk away. The verse is there to guide them and, of course, I always come back and help anyone who needs it.