FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) — At the KLSD Education Building in downtown Fresno, the world of possibilities stretches as far as your imagination – or at least as far as your yarn.
“It’s a bow with a white outline. I was going to do flowers but I didn’t want to,” fifth grade student Leilani Barrera said.
She was hard at work on her creation.
She’s taking part in one Madera Unified School District’s new winter camps called “Magic Threads.”
Here, students learn how to tuft and create their own rugs.
“It was hard at first, a little bit, but then it started getting easier,” Leilani said.
Guevara Arts & Leadership partners with Madera Unified to teach the camp.
Partnership and Engagement Manager Andrew Castro says the designs and color choice are completely up to the kids.
Students can have a design projected and traced or draw it themselves.
“We’ll start them off with something simple, but once they start understanding what they can do, their creativity goes crazy and they start doing their anime, their sports, their demon hunters, their Labubus, their cartoons — there’s so much pop culture they can choose from, and we just let them have their future,” Castro said.
A total of 20 MUSD students registered for the camp.
BMUSD Director of Expanded Learning Suzanne Dudney says around 1,000 students are taking part in a variety of camps this week in Madera and Fresno.
She says she hopes students walk away with new activities that don’t always involve electronics.
“We really hope that when we bring students these camps that we provide them with a number of opportunities to experience something new, maybe spark some curiosity and some new interest that they may not otherwise been exposed to and maybe something that they can continue on their own,” Dudney said.
Students add backing to their rugs and will get to take them home.
For students like Leilani, who has been to other winter camps in the past, she says this one stood out.
“I think this is the best,” Leilani said.
The class wraps up this Friday, but Dudney said there is a chance it will return this summer.
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