Materials for Learning
Learning a new skill, or medium, requires you to master the basics first. Chenille stems, or pipe cleaners, give the beginner just what they need to learn. Their soft covering of fluff protects young fingers. Bright colors capture the imagination. They fit together better than bare wire would. Easily cut with craft scissors and they are extremely simple to clean up. Overall chenille stems are the best way to introduce young children into the world of art with wire.
While they can be purchase at any craft store, the best retail values are online. Amazon.com offers several packages of one thousand chenille stems for just twenty dollars. These craft quality chenille stems give your classroom, youth group, or birthday party a ready made palette of as many as 30 different colors of bright, bold, and beautiful art supplies. But bear in mind the quality and color of these (most likely) imported chenille stems will vary from order to order.
Lower prices can be found through wholesalers, abet with higher minimum orders and shipping charges. B.J. Long makes high quality pipe cleaners for more than just smokers. They sell to markets as diverse as factories for cleaning robots to laboratories who use them to dry scientific equipment. Their American made products use high quality steel and real cotton. You can use in their natural white cotton, color them with markers, or even bake them in an oven to a rich organic brown (with adult supervision.) They also offer colored “Pipe cleaners” made from acrylic fibers, rather than cotton. These are of the highest quality, but with a more limited choice of colors.
For more information on promoting personal heroism, We have several books and sites to recommend. First check out the Heroic Imagination Project by Dr. Philip Zimbardo (of Stanford Prison Experiment fame.) He has built an amazing curriculum based on the principle, “The opposite of a Hero is not a villain, it is a bystander.” For further reading, I can recommend world-renowned folklorist Maria Tatar and of course the classic Joseph Campbell.
For the children themselves there has been an explosion of books about heroes from fiction and history. Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History and it’s companion Little Legends: Exceptional Men in Black History tell the story of BIPOC heroes across centuries who made their world a better place.
