A recent art project at Birch Creek Elementary bridged the gap between first and sixth grade, creating unity and new friendships. Art specialist Natalie Nish’s sixth-grade students converted drawings of monsters created by first-graders into three-dimensional stuffed animals.

 

According to Nish, the project began with a book: The Little Shop of Monsters by R. L. Stine and Marc Brown. “During the reading,” Nish shared, “I was trying to show the first-graders that monsters are not so scary—that we have things in common with them. For example, one of the monsters [in the book] is ticklish.” Nish then had the young students use their imagination to draw a picture of a friendly monster that they might like to play with. 

 

For the next stage of the project, sixth-grade students at Birch Creek were each given the name and drawing of a first-grade student. The older students spent months crafting the whimsical monsters—learning how to create and cut out a pattern, sew four basic hand stitches, tie French knots,  and sew on buttons.

 

                

 

On March 12th, the months of designing and creating the stuffed animal monsters came to a close as Nish led the sixth-grade students to the first-grade classroom, where they met the original designers of the monsters and presented them with the finished products. 

 

The first-graders were all smiles as they welcomed and became friends with their sixth-grade counterparts. They beamed as they received their stuffed monsters, and the sixth-graders were grinning as they proudly showed off their hard work.