First Day Joy: "I CAN DO IT NOW!"
- Shellie Smith
- 7 days ago
- 4 min read
This is the good stuff!
Yesterday was the first day of school, and here are a few of my favorite quotes from my first graders. I swear, I couldn't make these up if I tried!
Isla: “I was so tired all day, but now my hand feels so ENERGIZED!”
Nova Kai: “Can I do this for the rest of camp? ... This is a camp, right?” (LOL! 😊)
Danny: “I’d rather be playing soccer, but I’m really good at this now. So now I just want to do this.”
Narina: “Look! Look! My rainbow is growing!”
Mana: “I can do it now! I can help you!”
Let me set the scene.
It was the first day of school, and it was pouring rain! Not a great start. Fortunately, by recess it had slowed to a light drizzle, so the children played beneath the shelter of the wide branches of the banyan and monkey pod trees.
I always like to begin the year with simple, short projects, especially in first grade. I want to set my children up for success. I want to build their confidence before we jump into more challenging skills like knitting. For those first few weeks, I want them to leave handwork class each day with the feeling:
YES! I can do it!
So, this year I decided to begin with Mind the Gap, a very simplified version of Japanese Kumihimo braiding.
I had a story prepared, but as I was driving to school in the rain, I decided to create a new one. Since it was such a rainy day, I wanted to connect the story and the project to something the children were experiencing right then.
So my story went something like this:
Oh my, what a rainy day! Did anyone see a rainbow today? Have you ever noticed that when it’s very rainy and the sky is thick with clouds, we don’t see the rainbows? But when there is a little gap in the clouds—a place for the sun to shine through—that’s when the rainbows come down to the earth.
Long ago, when the earth was new, there were seven colored threads that lived high in the sky above the clouds. They always stood together in a circle. In the middle of their circle was a hole where the colors could look down and see the earth below.
One day, as the clouds dropped their rain, the colors looked down and saw the beautiful sparkles of light the raindrops made on the tall grass. They saw the children playing and splashing in the puddles. The colors wanted so much to travel down to the earth.
“But how can we get there?” Blue asked.
Then they noticed something they had never seen before. In their circle there was a small gap.
Red shouted, “Maybe if I jump into the gap, I can travel down!”
So she called, “One, two, THREE!” and jumped into the gap.
But when she did, a new gap suddenly appeared where Red had been standing before.
Green decided to jump into the new gap.
“One, two, THREE!”
And he jumped.
Soon all the colors decided to join in the fun. But each time one jumped, a new gap appeared in its place. So they kept taking turns:
One, two, three, JUMP!
And around and around the circle turned.
As they jumped, they began to see something beautiful forming. The colors were twisting, weaving, and braiding together, and a rainbow was growing down through the hole in the center of their circle.
They kept jumping into the gaps and weaving themselves together until the rainbow grew all the way down...
...and touched the earth.
Next, I demonstrated how we could create our own rainbows with Mind the Gap. But before I passed out the discs, I told the children there was something very important we needed to know.
“Can you raise your right hand?”
“Can you raise your left hand?”
“Oh, very good! Let’s play a game to practice!”
And so we played the movement game Right Hand, Left Hand a few times.
You can watch a video of the Right Hand, Left Hand game below.
Knowing our right from our left helps us with Mind the Gap because we always count the threads and make our next move on the right side of the circle.
Then I passed out the circles, already loaded with rainbow yarn, and we got started.
The children were bursting with joy, enthusiasm, and a sense of accomplishment.
And now, with the full context, here are those sweet (and hilarious) words again:
Isla: “I was so tired all day, but now my hand feels so ENERGIZED!”
Nova Kai: “Can I do this for the rest of camp? ... This is a camp, right?” (LOL! 😊)
Danny: “I’d rather be playing soccer, but I’m really good at this now. So now I just want to do this.”
Narina: “Look! Look! My rainbow is growing!”
Mana: “I can do it now! I can help you!”
These are the sweetest classroom moments. This is the joy of teaching handwork.
A child begins with, Can I do this?
And before long, we hear, I can do it now! I can help you!
That little journey—from uncertainty, to confidence, to wanting to help another—is some of the very best stuff.
Here is the little verse we used to help us remember the rhythm of Mind the Gap:
One, two, three,Turn the gap towards me.
If you would like to bring this project to your children, click below to watch a short video tutorial for Mind the Gap.
And if you are looking for more ways to bring this kind of joy, confidence, rhythm, and creativity into your handwork classroom, we have gathered so many of our favorite resources into our Grades 1–5 Handwork Curriculum Guides.
Inside you’ll find projects and teaching tips, along with stories, verses, songs, movement activities, technique videos, and practical support to help you set children up for success.
And this weekend is a wonderful time to explore them!
Back to School Weekend SaleSeptember 4–7, 2026
Our Grades 1–5 Handwork Curriculum Guides are on sale all weekend, with even more savings when you bundle.
Click below to learn more!
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