I am SO excited to share this activity with you all today. It is one of my favorites. This sewing project has so much to offer. Keep reading for all the goods.

Who can do this?

Of course it totally depends on your individual child’s age, development and temperament, but I like to start this with preschoolers. Older children and adults will also LOVE this.

Why is this a valuable experience?

This sewing project is a true process art experience. While they are working on a skill, there are no templates to follow, directions of how this should look. This can be an individual or a group project. This can be worked on over a long period of time. This experience will help your child develop fine motor skills, which he will later use for writing, shoe tying, dressing, drawing, and more. This activity will build your child’s sense of self and her self-confidence. When you allow children to use real tools and materials (needles, yarn, etc.) to work on something that they’ve only seen grownup do (sewing), you are showing them that you value them as a WHOLE person. You are believing in their ability to rise to the occasion and do hard things. Learning to sew is not easy, but it is achievable when you stick with it and practice. Children will take that to heart and transfer that lesson. Your child will internalize pride and ownership when sewing.

What will you need for this project?

I have linked everything that we used below, including this unfinished wood window frame, burlap, yarn, plastic needles, beads, etc. I encourage you to use bits and bobs that you have lying around at home, rather than running out and purchasing new crafting items. Scour those deserted crafting kits and see what you can find before you run out and buy anything new.

Tips and Tricks:

Think out loud as you model sewing. Phrases like, “In and out, in and out….” really help your child internalize the motions.
Make sure you have lots of space, especially if this is a group project. Young children will make large gestures as the pull the yarn through the burlap.
Pre-threading a few needles goes a long way with frustration tolerance.
Tipped lacing yarn is a great place to start if you want to introduce this to your older toddler.
Hold off on adding in the ‘extras’ like beads and pom poms until they really understand the foundation of sewing.

Do you want to see what this looked like the first time I introduced it ? The girls were three and six. Here is the original blog post I wrote….

SEWING WITH CHILDREN