Every year near the holidays, I read the enthralling and evoking folktale “The Quilltmaker’s Gift,” as told by Jeff Brumbeau and illustrated by Gail de Marcken.

In it, a jealous king, who has everything, wants one of the quiltmaker’s beautiful quilts. However, she only gives them to the homeless. After discussion, she agrees to make him a quilt by adding a quilt square every time he gives one of his precious things away.

Not liking this idea, he makes several attempts to scare a quilt out of her. When these attempts fail, he begins giving his things away one at a time.

He becomes happier with each giveaway.

This year
Touched by the beauty and power of the book, one of my students asked if we could make a quilt. This has happened several years. To date, my classes have made and given away seven lap-size or baby quilts.

So I got some fabric, cut it into squares, and gave one to each student. Using colored markers, each student wrote a message and/or drew on his or her square.

I brought in my sewing machine and helped each second grader sew their piece onto the quilt. One student’s grandmother, Brenda Badger, volunteered — even though she works — to sew on the backing for us. After doing so, she brought the quilt back with yarn for each child to have their turn to tie the back to the front.

To go along with the quilt, we wrote well-wishing letters to the recipient. I took it to the Dorcas shop/Christian Community in action and expressed our wish that it be given to a homeless person.

Present and future wishes
From the book and the quiltmaking, I hope the children learn that the act of giving is more powerful than the act of receiving, and about empowerment — that young children can move themselves forward in good ways through meaningful service activities.

Connections to curriculum
In social studies we learned about good citizenship and community.

We also learned about resources and production, both of which were discussed during the making of the quilt.

In math we discussed the size (measurement) we wanted the quilt to be and the size and number of the pieces, along with their arrangement, to make the size and shape of quilt that we wanted.

In addition, we had writing practice through letter writing.