Try it with the Kids: Finger Knitting

With summer coming on fast, parents who read this may have kids home from school more soon, or teachers who have a class in the summer may be looking for more crafty things to do with some of their time over the summer. I’m planning to share some general craft ideas and skills you can learn along with the kids if you don’t already know them so you can all make together this year.

First up: finger knitting. Kids love finger knitting (especially in late elementary school, but I think teens would love this too as a throwback) and it’s super easy to learn.

The only supply you need is yarn. I have a tutorial over at Our Daily Craft you can try, which shows you how to make a chunky bracelet, or check out this video from Red Ted Art that shows you how to make a finger knitting butterfly.

What else can you make with finger knitting? There are actually whole books on the topic, but here are some other ideas to get you started.

A finger knit snake is a classic, and this pattern from Vickie Howell (who also wrote the book mentioned above) is fun and easy.

Red Ted Art also has a cute bunny made with finger knitting. Imagine Childhood has a darling little finger knit basket.

Kids might enjoy making this finger knit garland from Sisters What to decorate their rooms. Or for a bigger project they can make a rug like this one from Meet Me at Mikes.

This finger knit ear warmer from Simply Maggie could be made into a headband by just working a single strip of knitting. You can also finger knit a hat with these instructions from Bean Creative (shared at Red Ted Art).

Or you can just make a long strand and turn it into a necklace, or sew strips together into a scarf. Hello Glow has a single strand infinity scarf project. Once you get kids started they are sure to think up their own ways to use the strips of finger knitting, too.

Do you know how to finger knit? I’d love to know what you or your kids do with your knitting!

Did you know that October is Squirrel Awareness Month? I didn’t know we needed more awareness of these little creatures, but let’s take it as a sign to learn more about squirrels!

Let’s start with some fun facts via Kids Konnect: did you know there are five subfamilies and more that 280 species of squirrels? The smallest are pygmy squirrels and the largest, the Bhutan giant flying squirrel, can be longer that 4 feet (1.2 meters).

Tree squirrels can climb down trees so fast because their ankles can rotate 180 degrees, allowing them to grab the tree bark as they go down. While most squirrels don’t survive their first year of life, they can live five to 10 years in the wild and squirrels have been known to live up to 20 years in captivity!

Rhythms of Play has more fun facts and tips for observing squirrels if you want to add some real life nature to your nature study.

We always like to start these collections with life cycle and parts of the animal printables, so let’s grab the squirrel life cycle an parts of a squirrel worksheets from Montessori Nature. (It doesn’t look like these are free any more but they have a whole unit study on squirrels you can buy that includes life cycle and parts activities, characteristics of different kinds of squirrels, a printable poster, information about predators and more.)

Grab the squirrel lapbook printable (free with email address) from Homeschool Share to learn the parts of a squirrel, where they live, what they eat, whether they hibernate and more. There’s also a nut taste test printable, a place for making observations about squirrels, life cycle of an oak tree, games and more.

Simple Everyday Mom has some cute squirrel themed worksheets including tracing the letter s, labeling the parts of a squirrel and a letter s maze. She also has more activity pages with a squirrel theme, including matching, a more traditional maze and a counting and graphing activity.

Work on letter recognition with this squirrel and acorn game printable from Teaching Mama. I love the idea of hiding the letters in a fall themed sensory bin for kids to find, identify and match to the letter on the worksheet.

For older kids you can do this “if I were a squirrel” writing prompt from Lesson Planet.

And throw in a little counting with these squirrel and acorn tens frame printables from JDaniel4’s Mom, which you can use to count real acorns or any other little fall themed thing you have handy.

Have you read?

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