Monday, September 27, 2010

Monkey business...

Those who know me know that I have a thing for sock monkeys. I love them. I just can't help it...it's almost an obsession, lol! Needless to say, this love has rubbed off on my students at school. They all want to make them!!! Being that I have over 300 students and only 1 sewing machine, well....especially when I need to have some sort of control over the sewing part. Call me Monk, lol!

So I decided to host a 6th grade Art Club called the Kinship of the Traveling Sock Monkeys. I let the kids pick out which colors they wanted for their monkeys (pink, blue, or brown red-heeled socks) and then bribed my friend AJ (mostly with Starbucks and cupcakes...and I have yet to produce the cupcakes, lol!) to help me sew the bodies, limbs, ears, and tails of 30 monkeys.

The best part of this project is that the kids are going to document the life of their sock monkey in a journal (provided by me). They will write journal entries from the monkeys' perspectives, as well as document with pictures of their monkeys in action. Art (stuffies art) and literacy. What a delicious combination.

We're two days into this Art club project and the kids LOVE it! They are having a ball....the room is a-buzz with excited conversations about monkey names and wardrobes, where they are going to take their monkeys, etc.

Here are a few pictures of our monkeys-in-progress. They don't look like much at the moment, but give em a few more weeks. Max the giant sock monkey is overseeing the whole shabang :^)






And my first graders kinda jumped on the bandwagon with little clay monkeys...


And the journey continues...

Candice :^)

2 comments:

  1. Perhaps the kids could donate their finished dolls to a shelter or charity of some kind? Very cute project!

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's a great idea! I'll talk to my students about it :^)
    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete