Teddy Bear Quilts

Second graders are beginning to design teddy bear quilts. In the tradition of quilts capturing history or a story, our students are creating squares that connect to themselves as well as the stories we are reading in class. Connected to a mini unit on author, Patricia Polacco, we have read My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother, Some Birthday and Babushka's Doll. The students then sketched out images connecting the stories to themselves. The first square is dedicated to a family member, the second to a way birthdays are celebrated, or a special birthday memory and the third about a toy or object that is special to the student. We will finish our mini unit on Patricia Polacco with the book Thank you, Mr. Falker. For this square students will share something they may have found hard or something they recently learned.

Our next step is to draw our ideas on cloth quilt squares, sew the together and bring them home for their teddy bears.

This project gives students the opportunity to connect the stories to their own life, even though the author and the characters circumstances such as setting and age may be different. It also invites students to think about who they are and present their own stories. Finally, it will give them the opportunity to use a different way of sharing information, this time through sewing together a mini quilt.