This week during Lunchtime Literacy at Fishtown Community Library, we read an old classic, “The Patchwork Quilt” by Valerie Flournoy. The children learned that a quilt is a blanket made of pieces of fabric. After storytime, the children created their own patchwork quilts by selecting precut squares of fabric and gluing them onto a large piece of cardstock. The children also had the option to customize paper “patches” to tell their own stories, and several children drew members of their family on their patches.
The children enjoyed looking through the fabric squares and having the freedom to assemble their quilts in any way of their choosing. Despite their young ages (ranging from two to four), the children easily mastered the skill of neatly “painting” the liquid glue onto the fabric squares and then adhering the squares to the cardstock.