How are clothes made?

A few weeks ago, I shared some pictures of a little American girl who makes amazing paper dresses with her mom. You can see it here. Some of our students were interested in making clothes for our dolls, and I was hoping the pictures would inspire them to make their own clothes.

It fizzled. No one was interested and they moved on to other projects. Then yesterday, out of the blue, Lily wanted to see the pictures of the "real life girl with the dresses" again. It seems she just needed a little time to process what she saw and to come up with her own ideas.

We looked at the post again, and decided to try making our own paper dresses. Before we started, I wanted to spark some inquiry with the following question:

"How are clothes made?"

The girls took out their extra clothes and we turned them inside out to see how they are put together.

"It has like knitting on the inside. Someone sewed it up."

"There are sleeves and a body part. And tags. And buttons."

There were lots of giggles when we got to the undies...and we had an interesting conversation about elastic!

Next, I took one of my extra shirts and started to cut it apart so we could see the components. This scandalized the girls (how wasteful!) and we all had a good laugh! They wanted to try on the pieces to see if it could be made whole again.

Maci and Lauren noticed that when the shirt had the sleeves and side seams cut off, they looked a lot like our blue painting smocks.

Now that they understood the basics of how a shirt is constructed, it was time to plan their own creations.

We gathered materials and began experimenting. They quickly discovered that it is a lot easier to work with a partner. Hmmm...maybe we need some child-sized dummies?

As they admired the creations in the mirror, it was clear the pride and transformation they felt.

As we launch into this project, I wonder how far it will go. Where will the children take us? What will they teach me?