Tie Dye Until I Die: Classroom Edition

By now if you're a regular visitor, it's no surprise that I'm a lover of tie dye.  My classroom decor reflects this passion, my tie dye inspired clothing serves as my walking advertisement, and my students CONSTANTLY beg to do it with me.  Until recently, I never pulled the trigger on it.  I used to be a Summer Camp Counselor at an all girls overnight camp (shout out to you RPC 4 G's) and I once tie dyed with over a dozen 9 year olds because they paid me in pine cones--I wish I was kidding.  Never have I ever had so many tie dye nightmares.  But fear not it's been about 6 years in the making and I've finally mastered the art of tie dying with my students.  In fact, I'm going to share with you how successful tie dying with 60 4th and 5th graders was for me.

Step 1: T-Shirts.

I thought this was going to be the most difficult part--having everyone bring in a t-shirt.  To my surprise this was not difficult at all.  The best thing about tie dye is that you don't need a new white t-shirt to do the trick, it can even be an old sports camp shirt with screen printing,  just make sure it's 100% cotton.  You'll always have those parents that send in packs of shirts for those students that forget.

Step 2: How to Tie the Shirts

Keep it simple.  For most of your kids they've probably never "properly" tie dyed before.  When I say properly they probably just took a whole bunch of rubber bands and tied it up randomly.  To guarantee a successful product I show students two very simple patterns to create:  Your traditional swirl and an accordion style fold.

Step 3: How the heck am I supposed to do this in my classroom?

Fear not.  It's possible, fun, and easy.  Break it down into steps.  I had students tie their shirts a day or two before we actually dyed them.  This is how we did it.  After showing them how to tie the shirt they brought their t-shirt (with name written with sharpie on the collar) and dunked it in the sink full of water (shirts are easier to tie if they are wet), we squeezed it out, and students practiced and secured their design with rubber bands.  To keep the shirt wet, I immediately had students put the shirt in a ziplock bag with their name on the outside.  

Step 4: The Dye

This step is so easy--BUT you must have students thinking about color theory so they don't get a muddy mess.  For first timers, I suggest limiting students to choose only 2-3 colors.  2 might even work the best so they can just coat the shirt 1/2 and 1/2.  After I showed them how to apply die, we went outside with dye, soda ash, and old file folder racks.  I have students remove their shoes (just in case), and we go.  Normally, you'd want to soak the shirt for 15 minutes in soda ash to fix the colors, but for this go around we just dunked them right before we dyed them.  Students place the shirt on the file folder rack to let the dye drip through and your in business!  After both sides are done and the excess dye has dripped off, put it back in your ziplock bag and let it sit.  This  is the most important part--if you don't let the dye set for at least 24 hrs the colors won't be very vibrant.  I didn't trust the kids to wash them at home so I just did that part, before I put them in the wash machine I hose them off to get any extra dye out. 

Step 5: Wearing Them

Beware: kids will wear their shirts for the next 5 days straight--I PROMISE.  But before they took them home I obviously made all 60 students wear them and parade around school in a line with my Tie Dye posse.  Needless to say everyone who wasn't us was jealous.  

Tie Dye, Psychedelic Donuts, & Ojo de Dios

There are 4 days left of school...I REPEAT 4!!!!!!  

It's no secret that I'm a tie dye lover, and my students know it too.  In fact, they BEG me to do it with them.  HOW I WOULD LOVE TO DO THIS, but I'm still trying to figure out the logistics, like ya know getting white shirts that fit everybody.  Maybe I'll start small and try it out with my summer school class.  This one time at summer camp we had an auction, the campers bid on items (aka counselors) with the payment of pine cones.  I'm not kidding.  Well I decided I would put myself on the chopping block and who ever was able to pay me the most pine cones would get to tie dye with me. NEVER AGAIN.  Needless to say, thirty 8 & 9 year olds and tie dye had me going  extremely a little crazy.

Moving on......

You know at the end of the year when you have all those nearly empty paint bottles?  You try to combine them, dilute them a bit to get the paint of the sides, keep them upside down, and you still feel like you are wasting paint when you throw them away.  I've got your solution--if you're in to tie dye.  I hit up the travel section at target and bought a bunch of those little 50 cent travel hairspray type bottles.  Water those paints down--like a lot--as long as you can see the color your golden, pour them in the bottles and you're all set for some magic.

2nd graders took on fiber arts for this lesson.  We started off with talking about the history of the Ojo de Dios (God's Eye) and the culture of the ancient Pueblo People.  We sat all kum ba yah on the floor (me included) and we got to work on our Ojo de Dios.  

The next class we made our "tie dye." I showed students a couple of different ways to fold their fabric, you don't need to use rubber bands, and then they used our spray bottle of paint to color the fabric.  When they were finished I had them clip it to our makeshift clothesline.  

If you don't have fabric you can do this with a sturdy paper towel, just make sure to soak it in water before hand.  Some classes ran out of time so we had to do a different version of tie dye.

To finish this off, I'm going to leave you with these psychedelic, rad donuts, that only one class who had a little extra time were able to do.  We learned a thing of two about our friend Wayne and made these beauts. Donut you just love them?  

Summer's so close I can taste it.

Living Out the Dreams of My Tween Years

If you haven't figured it out by now....I LOVE TIE DYE.  I love wearing it, making it, just everything about it.  I was probably about 14 when I made my first shirt, not really knowing what I was doing just tying random rubber bands and not having any methodology to my color choices.  But, don't you fret I still wear that shirt with pride.  I've come along way it's been ten years later I'd consider myself to be a semi-pro tie dyer, if that could even be a title.  There is something so fun about mixing and creating colors and designs and each time the result is always a fun, different surprise.  Each time I finish something I anxiously await and am awed by the result like I'm a kindergartener mixing the primary colors for the first time.  Anyway, I've mostly stuck to clothing when it comes to my tie dye endeavors and I've got my system pretty well developed.  I was having a conversation with my mom a few weeks back, I'm not even sure about what, but it led to her mentioning that I should make my own tie dye sheets.  WHY HAD I NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE??!!  I was immediately taken back to a TV show from my tween years, Lizzie McGuire.  There is an episode where Lizzie skips Danny Kessler's (the boy that everyone has a crush on) pool party and her and her BFF, Gordo tie dye her bed sheets.  I forever remember that episode and have always remembered how cool it was and now that I'm almost at my quarter century life mark, I've finally fulfilled the dream of tie dying my own bed sheets.

I've never tie dyed something so large before so it was a new experience.  The hardest part was actually finding white sheets made of 100% cotton.  It took 5 stores and many denied microfiber, cotton-poly blend sheet sets until I was able to find an affordable pair of "sheets of Egyptian Cotton" na-na-na-na-na-na (you know from Uptown Girls).  But really why are sheet sets so darn expensive???

I've come to the consensus that doing the whole process is just easier when it's done outside.  I really hate wearing gloves, but then again I don't want my hands to be stained for days.  Next time I should wear them on my feet I think I still have some nice stains.  

Don't mind my apron it was the only thing my mom had in her kitchen (sorry mom, but I mean that thing has to be older than dirt). 

I've found that sunlight and a clothesline are key elements in successful tie dye.

I realize a clothesline is a thing of the past, but my parents house still has one and I take full advantage of it.  In my future living situations I'll be the tacky neighbor with the clothesline in the backyard, and you know what I don't care!

Plus, look at all the cool things you can do with a clothesline.

Here's that tie dye scene from Lizzie McGuire, start watching at 4:35.

Here's some of my other favorite tie dye pictures I've shared before.

Keeping Summer School "Groovy"

One of my favorite things in this world is tie dye.  I thank the Art of Ed for this lesson.

I loved it. The students loved it. 

I had some students make over 5 designs discovering something new each time.  

I did require each student to make me one that I could keep so we could have a groovy hallway display when school is back in session.  

It'll be rad.

Here's some of my summer tie dye!