fashion in the studio

"Angelina, I know what I want to make in the studio."
"Okay, can you draw me a plan?"
And so she does...and she explains to me that she wants to make a skirt, showing me her drawing.  I ask if she has some supplies in mind and she walks to the central supply shelves and brings back a beautiful, shimmery pink fabric.  After some discussion she decides to sew it.  We cut the fabric after measuring it on her body.  She carefully hand sews one side of the fabric closed.  Then tries it on.  There is a problem.  It falls right off of her body.  We talk about what holds pants and skirts up.  She walks around the studio looking at the waists of the various clothing her peers are wearing.  After some deliberation she says that she would like to attach a ribbon to the waist... "Yep, that would work".  At first she tries sewing the ribbon but our needles combined with the two fabrics to make sewing laborious at best.  We asks me to hot glue it on.  When it is complete she tries it on and pronounces it "PERFECT!"  Which of course it is.

While this was happening, there were eight other children in the studio.  Eight other children engaged in their own big thinking, encountering there own challenges and drawing from their own creativity and the creativity of their community to solve them.  If we don't see children as capable we are likely to offer formulaic answers to questions that they could solve in creative, resourceful and innovative ways.  Thus depriving them of all the learning embedded in each new challenge and opportunity.