I believe I mentioned in an earlier post that I was going to be teaching an after school knitting class this semester. It has been a doozy.

The first day, I had 9 students with 10 signed up. This was perfect, since I had ordered supplies for 10 students. There was a mistake, though. I had said I could teach Tuesdays and Thursdays by mistake and we had to make a change to just Thursdays. There was never an official change, though, so kids still signed up for the Tuesday night class. So the next week, when I had 12 students, I realized this was probably due to the canceling of the Tuesday class. I went out and purchased some supplies out of pocket, even though the supplies I ordered had yet to come in (turned in my paperwork mid-December for the stuff, fyi). The next class was cancelled due to snow. The next week — almost a month later — I finally have my supplies, for 12 students.

16 kids show up.

So for an hour, I try to teach 12 5th and 6th graders how to cast on and the knit stitch, unable to use YouTube (even though we had used it in the previous class two weeks prior) to help show them all at once. So I’m hopping from kid to kid, annoyed that I don’t have enough supplies, annoyed that kids keep getting added, just plain annoyed.

So I felt like I made no progress and wasted the kids’ time. The next class, two of my students show up with this:

The first is a scarf for the girl’s mother, the second is a scarf for the girl’s American Doll.

I have never felt so proud.

I went to the office and found out I have 15 kids registered for the class. I submitted a new order form for circular needles and double points so we can start hats. I only ordered 12, though. Hopefully this next batch will come in quicker and I can order the last few. And I think I have circulars that I can give them that will work, if we get to that point sooner than I think we will.

I’ve broken the kids up into groups of 2 and 3 so I can work more one-on-one with the kids. I’m working with one group a week, focusing on casting on and the knit stitch right now. I have one group that already knows those things, so we will be working on purling with that group. Once I get supplies for everyone and everyone casting on and knitting, we will be able to really start on projects.

We’ve had a rough start but I think it will get better. They’re incredibly excited and want to learn. But they’re starting to realize that I am only one person, there are a lot of them and we have limited time. I think I’ll have everyone knowing the basics by spring break, though. That’s really my only goal right now.