A stuffed caterpillar, clean or dirty socks, teddy bears and a couch.

It's not every week that I schedule in a craft for Kid's Klub, but every few weeks I will and last week was one of them. Our craft project was this fun stuffed caterpillar. Little did I realize what questions this project would bring up. :)

I had long, colorful knee-high socks for each of the kids. We stuffed those with loose poly-fil, then tied chenille stems around the stuffed sock to create the caterpillar body sections, added wiggly eyes, antennas and a mouth and - ta-da! - a caterpillar! How cute is that?!?!

The poly-fil I had was in a 2 foot square box, so I started pulling it out. (Btw, the kids were VERY excited to be playing with this stuff! I knew there was a valid reason why I'd been storing that extra poly-fil for the last 10 years - now it's put to use!)

Here's some bits and pieces of our conversation from that afternoon:

Coltin (in 3rd grade) asks me, "Are we going to put the stuffing in the socks?"

I start pulling out a couple handfuls of stuffing out of the box and respond, "Ummm......mmmmm, yeah, that's what we're going to do."

As I'm pulling out mounds of this stuffing, his eyes get huge and then he asks me, "How many teddy bears did you have to take apart?" Lol!!!

WAIT....it gets better....;) Keep reading....

Smiling, I said, "Well, uh...uh...none. This didn't come from any teddy bears. " (Through the years, I've torn apart a lot of things to get what I want from it, but never a teddy bear! :))

Coltin then asks, "Did it come from stuffed animals?"

I respond, "No, but that's usually what is in stuffed animals."

At this point, I've already pulled out a couple armfuls and am reaching in for the last armful.....and Coltin asks with this amazed voice, "Did you take ALL this out of a couch?"

I couldn't stand it any longer, I started laughing and said "No, I didn't take it out of a couch."

I told him that you could just buy it like that. I have a feeling his mom may regret him knowing that information. :)

Then the youngest kids table starts this very serious sock-washing discussion. First of all, you must understand that we've had a clean/dirty sock debate before. In some of the games/activities we have played, the kids have taken off their shoes/socks and then when it's time to leave, it's quite the chore trying to discover all the sock owners. :)

On one of our previous weeks, I asked one of the little girls if the socks I'm holding were hers? Her response, "No, those are dirty socks and my socks are clean." Fairly certain they were indeed hers, I tried to explain to her that if she had been wearing them all day at school, they were no longer clean. They would be dirty. She didn't believe me; she insisted hers were clean. :)

So when I informed the kids that we were stuffing socks, you know what question comes up, don't you?

I'm going around the the tables, helping them stuff their socks and hear this question, "Did you wash your socks?"
Knowing exactly what's going on in their minds, I respond with, "Yes, I wash my socks. But these aren't mine. These are new, clean socks."

And as I moved to help the other table, I continued to hear bits and pieces about socks, clean ones, dirty ones, yours, mine and theirs. I didn't hear everything they were discussing, but they were having a serious sock-washing discussion. And from what one of the parents told me, the new-clean-making-socks-into-caterpillars conversation continued at home. :)

This is why I love working with kids! They are so refreshing and many times their questions/answers/responses make me stop and think about life through their eyes. They just have a totally different outlook on life. And honestly? I love to hear what they have to say every week; I'm constantly surprised! :)






The next craft I have planned: a butterfly. No socks. No poly-fil stuffing. Only paper. Surely paper can't bring up such inquisitive questions. Then again, you never know....!!!