Knitting can help calm you, can help your ability to focus, or simply, as Kim Daniels’ fourth grade class at the Albany Academy for Girls has learned, can help keep a child’s head warm.
Save the Children is an international independent organization meant to help underprivileged children in developing countries. Daniels’ class has been knitting hats for the organization’s Caps for Good, after she attended a knitting conference and asked her students if they’d like to participate.
`Instead of just coming in and hanging out and chatting and doing free knitting, it was going to be a regular class,` she said. `The majority of the girls were interested in doing in. Some were starting from scratch.`
There are three children Daniels says have gone beyond the task put in front of them and had brought their knitting projects home during winter break to make sure they were done before the Feb. 28 deadline.
Genevieve Anderson, Kaili Ebert and Noreen Mian have excelled in the knitting unit but said it was hard when they first learned.
`Because you’re kind of learning how to do it,` said Ebert.
`But then it gets easy,` Mian chimed in.
`Yeah, because you have to have a little bit of patience to start out,` said Ebert.
Those three have now moved on to making their second hats.
Keeping a baby’s head warm while they are premature is very important to keep the child from becoming fatally ill since a lot of their body heat radiates from their heads. Daniels said a package would be put together by the organization that will include antibiotics, immunizations and educational information to help mothers keep their children alive.
Daniels had tried out teaching knitting with first and second graders, but said the unit worked best when it was introduce in the third grade. The students began to really hone in their knitting skills in the fourth grade and were able to build on them.
Along with just learning how to knit, Daniels said the activity forces the children to use math, science, improves their self-esteem and helps better their ability to focus.
`There are problem solving skills that can happen during knitting that they can work out,` she said. `They’re taking a risk because it’s not an easy thing. They have to get used to it. But then they start seeing the success that happens with it.`
There have been some students Daniels has had that have a hard time focusing on their work to the point where she’s worried they won’t be able to get through it. Once the knitting unit comes along, Daniels said the kids sometimes surprise her.
`There was on girl in particular in first grade and she finished a small purse,` she said. `She far surpassed her classmates, where in class they seem to be ahead of her but not in this. Think of what that did for her self-esteem that she could be successful in something the smartest kids were not successful in.`
Students even learn how to improvise while they are knitting, helping them to better learn how to be quick on their feet. Ebert said there are times where she will be doing a certain stitch that won’t turn out as planned. The end product becomes their own design.
`Sometimes when you make mistakes they actually turn out to be better than you thought they would be,` she said.
Anderson experienced this herself as she showed off a hat where she originally made a mistake but ended up creating her own design.
`I doing it but then I made a mistake and it ended up pretty,` she said, which Daniels said is called a `design element.`
While the knitting is helping the children with not only life skills but also giving them confidence, Daniels said they are `being involved in something that’s so much bigger than themselves.`
`I know they do what they say they’re going to do,` Daniels said of Save the Children. `They have a good standing. They walk they’re talk.`
Since some of the students will not be able to finish their hats before the set deadline, those that are leftover will be donated to local area hospitals for premature children. Daniels said she isn’t sure of which hospitals they will be sent to, but said she is reaching out to her local yarn shop and will discuss it with some of the parents.
Daniels hopes to continue to knitting unit but said it might not be what the next group of fourth graders will want to do and also what Save the Children will want donations of next year. The knitting class, though, will be kept at the fourth grade level.
`A project like this I would keep with the fourth grade because of the commitment involved,` she said. `They’re giving up their recess time to do this.“