Tying textiles into the classroom

The first station I completed dealt with textiles in the classroom.  We were given the choice between two projects. We could either make bags or make necklaces out of neck ties. I choose the tie because it looked a little more complicated. During this project we ran into multiple problems. The first one was that we were missing crucial supplies. The necklace required beads and buttons both of which we did not have but we did have ties. I choose a clip on tie. Trying to unknot it was quite adventurous. I now understand how it a clip on tie works. Then I started to rip the seams out so I could make the bag. The black lining turned out to be a tie shaped piece of fabric floating freely in the middle. I had to revamp the pattern and make my own lining. When we started to use the sewing machine we discovered that it was broken. Becca quickly started working on that. I decided to let her take over and work on figuring out how to fix my tie. I think the tension of the bobbin was a little too loose, but I would have to tinker with it a bit myself. On my sewing machine at home, you could fix that by turning a tiny screw above the bobbin holder about a 1/16 to a 1/8 of a turn. It does not take much. The reason I think the tension is off is because the top stitching looked perfectly fine but the bottom looked like a war zone. Towards the end I decided just to use the hot glue gun instead of the sewing machine. The glue gun was high temp so I burnt myself a couple of times with the glue. This probably one of the reasons kids are not allowed to have hot glue. Once I got back to my room, I dug into my button jar. I found a really cute heart button and I sewed it on. Next time I would probably sew the button on before I sewed it all together so I do not have to fight my lining. I crocheted a little string to go around the button to hold the bag shut. Since I used hot glue I had to find a section with less glue to pull the string through. This project definitely had a lot of kinks, but I can see how useful it could be in a classroom. I really want to teach lower elementary so sewing machines could be dangerous, but if I could modify the project. Maybe I could start by teaching the how to sew on buttons. There is a lot of hand eye coordination needed, make them look nice and neat. If I taught second grade I could use it when they start to learn how to multiply.