Knitting Kids Part II – Getting Ready and General Rules

Don’t forget to read last week’s Part I of Knitting Kids.

You would think that as an obsessive knitter, and a knitting designer that teaching my kids would be pretty simple.  But the prospect of teaching each of them is daunting.  I love to knit.  I love to homeschool.  Yet, teaching them to knit has proved to be very difficult for me.  I’m a perfectionist in this department.  I tend to be overly critical about things I am passionate about, and always see ways to improve.  I wonder sometimes if knitting might be one of those things where one should not teach her own child, for safety’s sake so that no one gets strangled.  

And yet, I see no line of knitting teachers out my front door, waiting to teach my kids.

Now that I’ve taught my 2 oldest, and will soon start with my 3rd, I’ve learned a few things.  I’m applying a lot of advice that I’ve gotten at homeschooling conventions as well on teaching your own children.  Here’s my biggest things to keep in mind when starting to teach a kid to knit.

• Plan for one on one time.  If there are other little siblings around, or lots of distractions, it will quickly become frustrating for you.  Plan ahead and make the first few sessions a “date.”  Let them sit on your lap, or next to you on the couch.  The less their concentration is interrupted, the faster they will pick it up.

• Provide short, straight needles, or even a 12” circular needle.  The shorter the better.  As a basic rule of thumb the needles should not be longer than their elbow to wrist or it is much too cumbersome. There are different schools of thought on whether kids should start with metal or wooden needles, but if you’re in a shop trying to decide pick wood.  Mine use metal because that’s just what I had on hand.  I haven’t met one person yet who would recommend kids start on plastic needles.  They’re sticky and bendy, which ends up being frustrating.  So often, these are the needles provided in those colorful kids knitting “kits.”  Just don’t.  It’s a recipe for frustration.

• Start with worsted, or aran weight yarn.  Also, as tempting as it may be, don’t use up the cheap acrylic yarn handed down from great-grandma, just because it’s practice yarn.  Believe me, I’m a big fan of hand-me-downs, and my kids rarely (or never) get the best of the best.  We make do, by used, go without.  I have made a bunch of cheap acrylic yarn blankets and they work fantastic.  To be honest I have an easier time crocheting with acrylic yarn than knitting with it.  But this was something my own knitting instructor was very firm about, and now that I have some teaching under my belt, I’ve come to strongly agree with her.  New knitters should always have real wool yarn.  There are 2 reasons for this.  First, it’s just more pleasant to handle, and it draws the knitter in.  It’s not as scratchy as acrylic, and feels like you’re petting an animal.  What child doesn’t like petting animals?  Wool is more elastic, and easier on tense little fingers.  Second, wool is more forgiving.  The cheap acrylic will show every uneven stitch and bad tension most unpleasantly.  Real wool will be more forgiving, and leave a new knitter with a greater sense of accomplishment.  It doesn’t take much.  Spend the $6 or $8 dollars and get wool, or at least half wool.  If possible, let them pick it out, or get something variegated for fun.  

• I learned this from Andrew Pudewa, who was a violin teacher using the Suzuki method, and now teaches a writing program that my kids use:  say ten positive thing to the child for each correction.  Learning something new will require a lot of corrections, but correcting constantly will quickly make this their least favorite activity.  Now, I feel the need to explain that I’m not an everybody-gets-a-trophy mom, and I do my best to set up high standards.  But learning a new skill like this is really hard.  They need to know that you think they can do it.  I actually can only manage about five positive thing for each correction otherwise I feel like I’m talking ridiculously nonstop, but know it should be significantly more.  It should not be false flattery.  It needs to be genuine observations.  For the sake of time, I start looking for positive things to say before we even get set up and start.  Some examples:

– Wow, I just love the color you picked out.  I can see you’re going to have an eye for this!

-Good!

-That’s the way!

-You’re getting it!

-You concentrate so well.  Your brain must be well suited for this.

-I love that you keep trying.  What a great attitude.

-Wow.  You’re getting it faster than I did!

-I like how you have good posture.  That’s so important.

-I bet you have so many ideas for what you are going to make!

-I can’t believe you just did all of that!

• Make it funny.  Add humor wherever possible.  Information is moved to the long term memory portion of their brains if it’s funny, especially if you have a right-brained learner.  **More on this in the next Knitting Kids post about using poems and stories to teach knitting.  

• Let them start with 3-5 rows set up for them in the project.  Don’t make their first stitches be trying to get through those tight cast on stitches.  That’s immediately hard.  My knitting teacher didn’t teach me to cast on until the second lesson.  (The first lesson being about 3 hours long as I was an adult.)  Cast on and work the few rows for them, and let them start there.  
  

• Don’t start with a scarf if possible.  It’s too big, and kids do better with more instant gratification.  Actually I was taught to knit a 4” little garter stitch swatch to start with.  So that’s what I did with my kids.  It doesn’t make anything, except maybe a small doll blanket, or maybe a washcloth for an 18” doll, or a Lego tent, coaster, or frisbee.  (My kids turn everything into a frisbee.)  The first project should have short rows, so there’s lots of change, but not so short that it’s hard to get a rhythm.  Certainly no less than 10 stitches, and no more than 20.  Let them know this is their practice time, and you expect it to have loopy spots and holes.  Those aren’t bad during practice time.  You just learn what they look like and how to avoid them.  If you have a perfectionist child like I do, tell her you’ll be disappointed and discouraged if she do it perfect the first time, because it took you a long time to get it, and you don’t want to feel stupid.  It should make them giggle.  (Part 5 in this short Knitting Kids series will be a linkup to some great kids patterns after you get past the small garter stitch square.)