Summer Memories & Quilts

by Karen Leggett Abouraya

Summer is a time for lemonade and summer camp, ball parks and swimming - and perhaps a visit to Grandma's house, with scrapbooks, old photos, soft quilts and other treasures with stories. Like the quilts of Gee's Bend. 

Susan Goldman Rubin celebrates The Quilts of Gee's Bend in her new picture book filled with colorful images of the practical artistry of several generations of women in Gee's Bend, Alabama.  In 1928, "when Nettie Young was eleven years old, her mother gave her a pile of cloth strips and told her to make a quilt all by herself." The cloth came from old work shirts, dress tails and aprons. Nettie arranged it all into a design she called "Stacked Bricks."

“When I was growing up, you threw nothing away,” said Nettie Young. “You found every good spot for a quilt piece and that’s how you made your quilts.”

The women of Gee's Bend, descended from slaves on the Pettway Plantation, have been making quilts for generations. The quilts had a practical purpose, but they were also beautiful works of art.  "Ought not two quilts ever be the same," explained Mensie Lee Pettway.

"How did the women come up with original ideas? Annie Mae Young said, ‘You find the colors and the shapes and certain fabrics that work out right, kind of like working a puzzle.'"

The Gee's Bend quilts can be inspiration for young writers too, whether they are writing at camp, in class or surrounded by trunks in Grandma's attic.

·       Help children collect a few pieces of old clothing - especially shirts or skirts that can be cut into strips or squares.  Have them design a quilt, individually or as a group, using these pieces. Give them time to think about their design. Then ask them to write about their designs:

o   What do you like about the colors you put together?

o   Does your quilt tell a story?

o   Write a true or imaginary story about some of the fabric pieces: who wore that shirt? Where has that dress been? In the kitchen? At a party? If possible, talk to the person who wore a piece of clothing and then write down your "interview." 

o   If the quilt includes pieces of cloth from your own clothing, write about something you enjoyed doing while wearing that shirt or dress.

·       Alternatively, have children talk to an older friend or relative about some special item – a vase, a photo, a piece of jewelry, a quilt – and then ask the child to write down that story, like a journalist bringing another person alive with words.

If you are feeling very ambitious, you can help youngsters make real quilt squares and then a real quilt following the directions in Rubin's book – making their own little piece of history.  

Mensie Lee Pettway said, “A lot of people make quilts for your bed, for to keep you warm. But a quilt is more. It represents safekeeping, it represents beauty and you could say it represents family history.”

 https://childrensbookguild.org/karen-leggett-abouraya

MEMORY QUILTS

by Joan Waites

My last blog post described an elementary school artist-in-residence program I participated in, working with fourth grade classes. After finishing with the fourth grades, I began working with each of the fifth grades. Our assignment was to make a class art quilt, illustrating the students special memories from their time spent at the school.

We began with a planning session, brainstorming ideas and doing rough sketches. Students were asked to pick one larger element to showcase, so it could be seen from a distance. Smaller details or designs were added to the background. For example, several students chose to draw the musical instrument they played in the band, adding musical notes in the background. Other students drew themselves wearing their patrol badge, chose an element representing the school fair, or drew portraits of themselves and their best friend.

Because a sewn quilt was a bit too complex a task to accomplish during our allotted time, (and beyond my capabilities), we assembled the art quilts using painted fabric squares, using the following supplies:

1.     Precut squares of fabric in a neutral color, approximately 8X8 inches, one per student.

2.     Any liquid type of acrylic paint-inexpensive craft acrylic paint works well.

3.     Large piece of patterned background fabric, measured to accommodate as many squares made per class.

4.     Old broom handle, curtain rod or even a varnished and sealed branch to hang the quilt.

5.     Paintbrushes, paper cups for water, paper plates to mix paint, paper towels and plastic trash bags to protect desks. Fabric glue to assemble all parts. For embellishments: black sharpie paint pens, ribbon, buttons, beads or other elements that can be glued on to fabric.

After the paint fully dried, students outlined their paintings using a black Sharpie paint pen. Beads, buttons or other embellishments were glued on top of painted squares. Squares were then glued in rows to the large patterned background fabric. Each square was then framed using strips of ribbon. Mismatched ribbon pieces add a lot of colorful interest! Most of the supplies were donated by parents as well as contributions from the PTA. We used some colorful sheets for the background fabric, and students brought in beads, ribbon etc., from home, keeping our costs down.

A similar project could also be done as a writing exercise, using squares of colored or patterned paper glued to a larger background piece. Have students write a paragraph or two about their fondest school memories, or challenge them to write these in poetic form.

The completed quilts will be hung and displayed first at the fifth grade graduation, then moved for permanent installation in the new school, sharing their memories with many more students in years to come.

www.joanwaites.com

How Does Your Garden Grow?

by Laura Krauss Melmed

Midsummer gardens in my northwest D.C. neighborhood are splashed with day-glow orange lilies, sunny black-eyed susans and spikes of royal purple salvia.  Following on Pam Smallcomb’s recent post inviting middle grade readers to a literary picnic, this glorious garden display suggests a good summertime (or depths of winter) writing activity for younger children, centered around the question, “How does your garden grow?” Two picture books serve as good jumping off points for such an exercise.  They are My Day in the Garden by Miela Ford, lushly illustrated by Anita Lobel (Greenwillow 1999), and My Garden by Kevin Henkes (Greenwillow 2010).

My Day in the Garden begins with, “Breakfast with the morning glories” and moves through “hide and seek with a toad, flower-counting with the butterflies, berry-picking with the birds,” and more.  As evening falls, “fireflies come to say goodnight.” For a lesson based on this book, first ask the children to close their eyes for a few moments and imagine that they are spending the whole day in a lovely garden on a sunny summer day. What do they see? Smell?  Hear? What might they feel with their fingers? With their feet if they took off their shoes? Are there fruits or vegetables growing in the garden to pick and eat?  What do they taste like?  What if a lawn sprinkler were suddenly turned on?     

Next read the story aloud.  Then take the students through morning, afternoon and evening in their own imaginary garden, asking them to come up with activities different from those in Ford’s text.  Write their responses on chart paper or a smart board.  Also invite the children to take a careful look at Anita Lobel’s illustrations.  How did she bring her own element of surprising originality to the story? Why might she have chosen the colors she used?  Point out that Lobel’s illustrations are highly patterned, explaining what this terminology means. Ask the students why Lobel may have chosen to decorate her illustrations in this way. How do her patterns relate to the theme of the story? How do they make you feel? Finally, have each child choose one of the garden activities described by the class and illustrate it.  

In My Garden by Kevin Henkes, a little girl helps in her mother’s garden, which requires hard work, but imagines a garden all her own.  In this garden, “There would be no weeds, and the flowers would keep blooming and blooming and never die…the flowers could change color just by my thinking about it… the rabbits would be chocolate” and “unusual things would just pop up—buttons and umbrellas and rusty old keys.”  There would be tomatoes “as big as beach balls,” and strawberries “glowing like lanterns at night”.  For a writing exercise based on this book, children could create their own six page “My Garden” book with a sentence and picture on each page describing the features of their own fabulous, fanciful garden.  

For a craft activity to accompany either book, have the students create a Fanciful Flowerpot Garden. You will need a 5-inch clay pot for each child, acrylic paints, florists foam, three craft sticks painted green per child, construction paper, pages from old garden catalogs (optional), glitter, and an assortment of small decorations such as beads, candies, gold stars, etc. and glue. Have each child paint a flower pot decoratively. Then have them draw a flower, insect and vegetable on construction paper and cut them out, or alternatively cut pictures of flowers and/or vegetables from a garden catalog.  Onto the tops of three sticks, have each child glue variously, a flower, a vegetable and an insect. Then have them decorate their sticks with glitter, stars, beads, etc. Fill each flower pot with florist’s foam. When the glue has dried, push the bottom of the stick into the florist’s foam. Your fanciful gardens are ready to be admired!

http://www.laurakraussmelmed.com/ 

Costumes,Crafts, and Creative Writing Fun!

by Mary Quattlebaum

Nothing says fun to kids like a party.  Yeah, all we teacher-librarian-writer folks know that writing is good for students (like academic broccoli), but we also know that a playful touch can help create a truly memorable experience.  Occasional cupcakes, costumes, and crafts can perk up classroom writing and reading.  And your “book party” may well become the highlight of the school year.

Fellow blogger/author Pam Smallcomb gets the sparkly crown for her edu-taining ways.  At events for her most recent picture book, Earth to Clunk, about space buddies, Pam has the kids make their own aliens.  Her go-to spot for inexpensive craft items and doodads?  Oriental Trading Company http://www.orientaltrading.com/.

Dressing up and doing a dramatic reading can help bring a book to life for students—and provide insights on creating dialogue and story tension.  Okay, I admit it:  I love dressing up as a “book buccaneer” for my picture book Pirate vs. Pirate.  And at Maret School recently, librarian Lisa Triggs asked the children to dress as pirates—and did so herself.  She decorated the library with homemade Jolly Roger flags and enticingly displayed other pirate books.  Arrrr, we had a fine time, mateys, acting out the story, learning about the writing process (with a piratical plume pen), and writing a pirate poem.

And, oh, kids love a setting that mirrors a book!  Librarian Jess Stork transformed Palisades Library into a pirate hang-out with treasure map and chest, gaudy bling, and wanted posters of the author.  Refreshments added a celebratory note.  (Ginger) ale flowed freely, and the Jolly Roger cupcakes were a welcome change from hardtack.  “Captain Jess” sported pirate duds and helped the excited attendees to make their own spy glasses with the paper-towel rolls, markers, stickers, sequins, feathers, and glue arranged like jewels on the table.

Both Lisa and Jess bring a certain “magic” to their book interactions with kids.  The key to the good times—and the learning--lies with them.  Lisa and Jess get excited about writing—and communicate that by word and example to the youngsters.  A big pirate huzzah to them—and to like-spirited teacher-librarian-writers!

Jess shares piratical decorating tips, activities, and photos at

DC Library: http://www.dclibrary.org/node/13751

Ink Spot Plot: http://inkspotplot.blogspot.com/2011/05/everybody-loves-good-pirate.html

My website www.maryquattlebaum.com has pirate writing exercises.

www.maryquattlebaum.com