Basket Weaving for Kids

Basket Weaving for Kids

I remember my first basket. It was at YMCA Day Camp. My father worked at a factory called American Optical Company and that summer, the AO sponsored Day Camp for the children of its employees. Daddy signed us kids up for a week in July.

I remember a few things about the experience.

1. I remember that the camp had teepees. Each little group of day campers was assigned to a teepee and you put your beach bag there. It was dark inside and smelled like wet towels. And you changed into your bathing suit in the teepee. At the same time as the other girls. Ie., not privately. Horrors.

2. I remember all of us campers sitting in a huge circle at the end of the day, with the Camp Director in the middle. We played a game called “Gossip”. Someone whispered something to the person next to them. Then that person whispered it to the next person, and so on. When it was my turn, there was no way that I could understand what had been said to me. “Grbbzkk”, I whispered into the ear of the person next to me.

3. I remember weaving a basket with a wooden base and round reed. Of course, I didn’t know it was round reed. I remember a long counter along a long skinny room that was three rough steps up, and we entered from a door on the very end. The ground outside was thick with pine needles and there was lots of shade and it smelled really… piney.  I remember running down those steps at the end of my weaving session, clutching my basket to my chest as I ran back to the teepee to get my beach bag and get on the bus. A half hour later I got off the bus with my basket. “Mummy! Look!”

Basket Weaving for Kids

 

Basket Weaving for Kids