All went good, despite my precautions about having glue in our project

We did an Autumn Leaf. Most students got the idea and the way to make it quite fast and had a finished project by the end of the class.

It was nice to have the whole group again, and to see them so motivated. I am happy to see the progress students made from the beginning of these classes until today.

This Wednesday, Nov12, we crocheted even more. One student expressed their desire to make another scrunchie and completed it over the class time — I am very happy to see her progress! Other two srudents were more interested in "free crocheting", so I helped them a bit with that. One last student was mostly interested in spinning another story, so the paper and "magic pencil" that I had were in a good use — and we all enjoyed some singing, some storytelling and some crocheting.

It was a smaller group than usual, and I missed some of the most creative students, but it also was a bit more manageable this way. We were able to finish all on time and even to clean up a bit before the class ended. I had to use the "quiet coyote" that I misinterpret as "listening llama" all the time, and modified "pam-param-pam"/"pim-pirim-pim" attention grabbers quite a few times.

Today we did some basic pumpkin/squash roasting in a toaster oven, and whipped three dips to have with them. Students enjoyed scooping "guts" out of the pumpkin and squashes (butternut squash and spaghetti squash), cutting them to pieces, drizzling with oil and adding a pinch of salt, but most of them lost their interest at that point. About a half of the students (mostly the older ones) actually participated in making the dips, and they minced some garlic, juiced lemons with the juices, and mixed them with the proportions on the recipe card. We made three types of roasted pumpkins and three dips: a "honey-no-mustard", a "radioactive paprika" and a "pum-something RRRANCH", according to the labeling they made for the sauces. I encouraged them to have a taste test on which pumpkin/squash with which dip they like the most, and the ultimate winner is the Butternut squash with pure honey.

To me it was 50:50, as I had some trouble getting them engaged and not play-fighting, again, but they were way better at monitoring each other and resolving their conflicts in a reasonable for a 7yo boy time. I had to pivot mid-class a couple of times to tailor the French to their current favorite activity.

We "traveled" to another mountain range of France, Jura. I prepared a slide show about these mountains (the favorite part of three students), we discussed a bit the dinosaurs — as their footprints were found in Jura, and we did the "dino footprint art" which was a favorite part for all 6 students. We read a book, which was a favorite part of 1 student, and then they decided that they want to do a poem, a song or a paper airplane, which took the rest of our class and was the favorite part of all six again.

It went ok. I had fewer students than usual (one was sick), but we covered some crocheting topics and talked some ideas about math vs art in life.

On the YarnArt Nov06, we circled back to crocheting per request of the students. One student finished her project from before, one student free-crocheted a piece as she liked it, and one was more into creating a story and writing it down, so we had three beautiful and unique pieces at the end. I have shown them the Granny square, the chart and the basic stitches, but we might try it again next time. We also covered the curious property of curling yarn "tentacles", when the chain of N stitches is covered with 2N single crochets on the next row and starts to curl on itself.

I feel that each class is a bit easier with this group, and they really enjoy the class that makes me happy. I still have to work on the afterclass cleanup time, as today it took too much than I expected, mostly because of the dough+flour characteristics.

We did the Pyrizhky / Stuffed Handpies from Eastern Europe cuisine. Students prepared two types of stuffing, the savory one (boiled eggs+green onions+salt) and the sweet one (caramelized apples), then practiced working with yeast dough shaping it into the final product. Some students were more into making plain dough rolls with some sugar on top, and it was okay.

It went good — we got some of our students' interests covered, and got a bit more of knitting.

We got more of knitting practice but agreed to get back to crocheting next time — students liked it better and feel.more confident on making a big project with this technique.

It does look like I finally got some authority in this group, and some trust too. Some students are still acting silly, but most are excited to follow the recipe, and they responded quite well to "Waterfall-waterfall" and "Pam-param-pam" attention grabbers.

Today we did some "Pumpkin" Pizza Bites as a savory Halloween-y dish and a Date-Roach as a sweet Halloween-y dessert. Students were excited to work with pizza dough (I brought it from home) and making their own pizzas, but less excited to make the "cockroaches" out of dates, sunbutter and caramel sauce. They ate quite some caramel sauce, shredded cheese and pizza sauce, though.

It was quite a success, because the activity I prepared matched the dexterity the students have. I will look for other simpler but challenging projects for this age group for the next classes.

Today, we did the Yarn Turtles, sang a song about a Turtle named Tiny Tim, colored a bit, and per request of some students learned the first step on how to knit, close to the end of the class.

For me it was a delight to see this group again after a long pause (the school had a break), and seeing them so motivated and eager to learn. It looks like they loved knitting, but it is a bit confusing for them right now.

Today we started Knitting with our students. Some students were more motivated and even got the idea and grip on knitting by the end of the lesson, and I am very happy for them. Some were more into continuing to crochet, so I let them do more crocheting. We got the idea of what we want to do as a Big Project, so I think I need more yarn to make it happen.