The Times Herald (Norristown, PA)
Making monsters: Students stitch it all together
Monsters don’t have
FRANCONIA » to be scary.
Sometimes they can be cuddly, like the ones preschool students in The Little Red Playschool at Souderton Area High School recently received.
Back in December, the preschoolers were read a story about how monsters can be friends, then were asked to draw a picture of a monster, said Teresa Doyle, a Family and Consumer Science teacher at the high school and director of The Little Red Playschool.
The drawings were then given to Indian Valley Middle School students in teacher Kelsey Faehner’s Family Career & Community Leaders of America club, who sewed together stuffed-animal monsters modeled on the drawings.
“We said it was the monster factory,” Faehner said.
On the morning of March 12, the middle school students brought The Little Red Playschool students hand-sewn versions of the monsters the preschoolers had drawn.
“This is a great activity to promote imagination and creativity,” Doyle said.
Along with having done something nice for the preschoolers, the middle schoolers had built onto their life skills through the project, Faehner said.
“Sewing is one of our family consumer sciences focuses,” she said.
In addition to the monsters having been delivered, there was also a story reading, Monster treats to eat and time for the preschoolers to make a monster out of Play Dough.
The Family Career & Community Leaders of America is a nationwide group, Faehner said. Focuses include community service, the family and helping others, she said.
Children ages three through five come to The Little Red Playschool two days a week, Doyle said.
“My high school students pretty much run the lesson plans and the activities that we do during the preschool sessions, under my guidance,” she said.
Having the preschool fits in with the school’s Pathway 360 career preparation programs by helping high school students prepare for future careers in early childhood education, Doyle said.