Sock Monkey Mania

I can hardly contain how excited I am over this project - SOCK MONKEY MAINA!  My middle school elective class learned how to stitch by making these adorable sock monkeys.  I had students observe the lovable stuffed animal and explore how it is made from one pair of socks.  From there, we discussed how to use a patterns and how most successful sewers start with a pattern to guide them through a project.  

I then passed out a ziplock bag for each student to keep their materials from getting jumbled.  They each got a pair of socks, a pair of scissors, one Sharpie, a sock monkey pattern and a needle.  We walked through the directions for sock number one and discussed how to thread a needle, make a knot, and start a basic stitching pattern.  I found this web site helpful How to Make a Sock Monkey to show the basic steps otherwise it would have been quite laborious to create an example for each stage along the way.

The next few classes involved minor finger bleeds, much laughter and students seeing their own success.  I can't express how happy this class was with their final product and I hope they will cherish these stuffed animals for the years ahead!