Ready, Freddy! Dream Catchers

My son and I started reading the Ready, Freddy! book series together this past school year. I had ordered the first five books from a book order years ago and set them aside for when he would be able to read. It has been so much fun reading together and discussing the stories. If you aren't familiar with Ready, Freddy! it is the boy equivalent of Junie B. Jones. It really is a fantastic series and I know they have a lot of the books in the Salt Lake County library system. At the end of each book there is a fact sheet about sharks (Freddy loves sharks). There are also activity pages. Some are puzzles others have simple crafts to do at home. In book number six Freddy is having nightmares about vampires. His friend at school tells him about her dream catcher and the activity at the end of the book shows you how to make your own dream catcher. After reading this book we had to make dream catchers. It didn't matter that we have finished books seven and eight in the meantime! My son would not forget this activity. It was good we needed a Summer craft for today.

My son is seven and my daughter is five. They were both able to do the majority of this craft and we did it on my bed. It took about thirty minutes for the three of us to make two dream catchers.

What you need:
Wire hanger or some sort of circle frame
yarn
pony beads
feathers

1. Start by shaping your hanger into a circle. Bend the hanging part down to form a hook.
2. String about ten pony beads on the yarn. You can use more or less depending on how decorated you want it to be.
3. Tie the yarn at the top of the frame.
4. Pull the yarn down to any part of the frame. We put one or two beads per strand. Leave the rest of the beads on the outside of the frame.
5. Wrap the yarn around the frame twice to keep it in place. I helped the kids by pinching where they had just wrapped to keep the yarn tight and in place. They decided where to take the yarn across next.
6. Move on to another part of the frame and do the same thing.
7. When you have as many strands in the center as you want end your yarn back at the top.
8. I wrapped the yarn around the hook so that the hanger would not scratch their beds and then tied it off so it wouldn't come undone.
9. To finish we tied yarn around feathers and then tied them to the frame. The kids decided where to hang the feathers.

They are both hoping that these do their jobs so they won't have any bad dreams. It was a great craft for their ages. It didn't take too long so they didn't loose interest and their little hands were able to do the work.