Quilting, knitting, and creating by hand foster collective learning. Plus: Top 10 crafting tips; Five outstanding crafting programs
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Youth services librarians in public and school libraries have long relied on arts and crafts as a staple of storytimes and other programming. These activities keep kids engaged, help develop fine motor skills, and are usually pretty fun. Crafting in groups adds a deeper dimension. Just like the quilting bees of old, a knitting or other handcraft group brings people together to share what they know. In such a collaborative space, teamwork and co-learning happen naturally.
Crafting, or manipulating physical materials by hand to create something new, is as old as the hills—which is about how long children have been doing it, too. It can be as simple as gluing pieces of paper together or as…
