Friendship Scrunchies
Friendship Scrunchies
Topic: Choosing Friends
Empowerment Lesson Video: Choosing the Right Friends
Supplies:
- 24” x 4” piece of fabric, one per student
- Nine-inch-long strip of elastic, one per student
- Scissors
- Safety pin
- Clips such as sewing clips or binder clips, a few per student
- Needle and thread
Video Discussion:
Introduce the topic of choosing friends.
Engage students in thinking about friendship by asking, “What characteristics make a good friend?”
Direct students to turn and talk to a partner. Then bring the class together to share students’ ideas.
Tell students they will be watching the video Choosing the Right Friends. Explain that the video features role models talking about things they think about when choosing friends.
Activity Instructions:
Students will be creating friendship scrunchies. Encourage students to think about the qualities they value in friendships while completing this activity.
Today, you’ll make your own friendship scrunchie! As you create your scrunchie, think about what friendship means to you and how you can build strong, positive relationships.
- Gather your materials including fabric, sewing materials, and elastic.
- Lay your fabric flat, with the longer edge facing you.
- Fold the fabric in half so that it is two inches wide. At this point, you should be looking at the “inside” of your fabric or the part that you don’t want to see when you are finished. Use clips along the top of the fabric to hold it closed.
- Fold the left edge of the fabric in, half an inch, and clip it.
- Measure down half an inch from the top clips and stitch all the way across the fabric to make a tube.
- Now you need to turn your scrunchie right-side out. Pin the safety pin through the left end of the fabric. Push the pin inside of the tube and pull it through the tube until it comes out the other side. By pulling the pin through your fabric tube, it will turn the tube right-side out.
- Take the pin off the fabric and attach it to the end of the elastic.
- Push the pin through your fabric tube again. This time, the elastic will thread through your tube along with the safety pin. Pull the elastic through until only about one-half inch remains outside of the tube. Use a clip to attach the elastic end to the fabric to make sure it doesn’t slip all the way through.
- Continue pushing the pin/elastic through to the other end. This will cause the fabric to bunch up. When the pin comes out the other side, pull until you have a small amount of elastic protruding from the other tube end.
- Remove the pin. Carefully hold the elastic while removing the clip from the other side. Then, pull the elastic ends out until you can easily knot them together.
- Stitch the ends of the elastic together and pull the fabric around them to completely cover the elastic.
- Stitch the fabric down over the elastic to complete your scrunchie.
