Earlier this winter, a teacher went viral on TikTok when her students colored pictures of winter hats—and she surprised them with real knitted versions of their creations. Samantha Monson, a special education teacher at Battle Creek Middle School and graduate of the SUTR program, was one of the 40 million people who saw the video. She sent it to her mom and sister, and half-jokingly asked them if they would lend their knitting skills to help her re-create the project for her students.
They were happy to help, so Samantha got to work creating her lesson plan. She gave her students a few prompts, telling them to choose a hat template and to color each section in a solid color. “I let them design their hats without any explanation as to why they were doing it,” she said. “I wanted them to be completely surprised.”
The hats were knit over winter break, and Samantha got to surprise her students with the 3-D versions of their designs when they returned to school in January. Needless to say, the students were pleased and surprised with the results, sharing reactions like:
“Oh my gosh, you made that?”
“That's my hat!”
“I thought you would make us cut our picture out, this is so much better.”
“I need to put this in my backpack right now to show my mom.”
Most of the students kept their hats on for the rest of the day, and many are still wearing them to school every day.
