Lucia and I attend a weekly parent-toddler program. For the first hour of the class, the children play and help make the muesli snack while the grown-ups participate in various craft projects. When grown-ups are working at tasks that the children can observe and sometimes even assist, the mood is both energetic and mellow. After the first hour of play, we all sing songs in a Circle Time, and then we prepare the room for the muesli snack while the teacher sets up the story in the next room. The teacher uses objects from nature like leaves, branches, rocks, and pinecones for the setting and hand-made felt and knitted figures to act out the stories. Afterward, we walk outside and feed the
brood of chickens (give into the temptation to click on this link; you won't be sorry! June 2, 2005: I changed this link because the original one frizzled out.)
One of our projects earlier on was to design and sew felt animals for our children. You may recall my first effort, the duck/goose creature. Now I am working on more ambitious projects. So far, I am most pleased with the
Bactrian camel:
I am posting my pattern in the event you wish to design and make some version of the camel:
