Knitting With Your Preschooler

by tedgar | More from this Blogger

For more than a month now, I've been going to a knitting group on Wednesday afternoons. Our group just finished this week, and I suspect I'm going to go through withdrawal. I've scheduled a few knitting sessions with a friend and her daughter so that I can bridge the gap. It might be tough, but we can do it. In case you think that I'm a knitting expert, I am pleased to say that in the past few weeks I have finally mastered the art of purling. Hooray for me!

My daughter has been knitting too, kind of. We were watching a movie tonight, me with my knitting (another scarf, wouldn't you know) and she with her knitting as well. She has two knitting needles and a whole mess of cotton yarn, and she's busy moving the needles in and out of the yarn. Occasionally she stops to show me what she's doing, but most of the time she is just very busy moving her hands and her needles in and out.

It can be challenging for smaller children to learn how to knit, because knitting requires a fair bit of eye hand coordination. It also requires coordination between both sides of your brain and your body. For young children who want to learn how to knit, a knitting bee or a loom is a good choice.

We also have a knitting bee, or a spool knitter. This is a good first knitting project for an older preschooler or kindergarten-aged child. You can easily make one of these with a wooden spool or a piece of dowel and four nails with heads. Sit the dowel on end and bang the nails into the end at equal points around the dowel. Then tie the yarn to one nail. Loop the yarn twice around each nail, then use a small crochet hook or your fingers to move the bottom loop over the top of the nail and into the center. Loop the yarn around the nail again, then repeat the process. This makes a long, thin snake of knitted yarn that your child can use to make necklaces and other creations.

When your child graduates from the spool knitter, a knitting loom is the next step. Essentially, these looms are like giant spool knitters. They're big circles, squares, or lines. Your child winds yarn around each part of the loom in a loop, then slips the bottom loop over the top. You get the picture. Using these looms, a child can make scarves and even hats.

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Tricia Edgar is a mom of one lovely daughter. Before her daughter was born, she decided to be guided by the needs of her child, and this led her to attachment parenting philosophies.

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