Rags To Riches

What is a Charity Shop?

A Charity Shop is a shop who is run by a charity. It usually sells clothes, books and household items which have been donated to the shop from a member of the public. The charity shop sell these donated items in order to make money for their charity.

Benefits of buying from a Charity Shop.

You are helping the charity to raise money for a special cause.
You are given clothes a second home and by doing this you are saving it from landfill and helping to reduce our environmental impact.
Buying second hand means that we are not putting pressure on our natural resources such a land, water and crops which are needed to make new clothes. This is also better for our wildlife as they are more food to eat and land to live on.
You get something new which is not in high street shops.
You may save money as second hand clothes tend to be cheaper.

School Activity: Classroom Swapshop to Make Money for Charity of Your Choice.

What is a Swapshop?

A Swapshop is where a group of people bring their unwanted clothes and swap them with other people who have unwanted clothes.

How to Organise a Classroom Swapshop.

Send home a note for parents explaining what a Swapshop is and ask parents to pick two items of unwanted clothes for their children to swap with their friends. If you like you can be more specific for example, by and ask for Tshirts and jumpers only.
Ask parents to donate 2 euro each for chosen charity.

On the day of the event, ask boys to leave their clothes neatly on one side of the room and girls to do the same but on the other side.

If you like, the week before the event you can tell your children that whoever has the best behaviour and has tried their hardest during that week can have first pick of the clothing. This will create excitement and will stop a stampede of kids fighting over the same thing.

To make it fun you can add music, take pictures and nominate a child to present the money to the charity (with parent permission).

To find out more about the Rags To Riches Primary School Workshop, click on the link below:

Garment Workers and The Rana Plaza factory disaster.

This lesson and activity is recommended for 5th and 6th class.

In this lesson, students will learn about garment workers working conditions and the Rana Plaza Disaster. Students will also become young activists by writing a letter to the CEO of Zara, demanding better working conditions and pay for all garment workers.

What is The Clothing Supply Chain?

The supply chain refers to the order of how our clothes are made. Just like the chain on your bike which are in order, if one link of the chain is removed, your bike chain will not work. Similarly, the the links in the clothing supply chain have to be in order to work.

First, farmers pick crops such as cotton.
Next, The cotton goes to the Suppliers who change the cotton into sheets of fabric.
Then, the fabric goes to the factory, where garment workers sew our clothes.
After that, once our clothes are made, they are sent to warehouses.
Our clothes are then transported to shops.
Then, we, the consumers buy the clothes and bring them to our house.
Finally, when we do not want our clothes anymore we get rid of them in different ways.

The supply chain is currently in a linear fashion. This means that there is a start and a finish. There is a big problem with our linear supply chain. Often the farmers who make our clothes live very far away from the people who sew our clothes and the people who sew our clothes live in a very far away and different country than us in Ireland.
This means that clothes need to be transported all around the world in either a truck, a boat or a plane. Trucks, planes and boats release lots of CO2 into our atmosphere which leads to climate change.

Lets say we pay 10 euro to buy a tshirt. That 10 euro needs to pay the farmers who grow the cotton, the garment workers to sew our clothes, the warehouse workers who pack our clothes to be transported. The drivers and ship captains who transport our clothes between these countries. Then we need to pay for petrol. Once at the clothes shop in Ireland, for example Pennys, we need to pay the Penny's staff who work there. We need to pay them with that 10 euro we paid for our Tshirt.

How much money can the farmer, garment worker, warehouse staff and pennies staff get paid from that 10 euro? Can they feed their family on that much money?

What Can We Do To Help?
Swap clothes with your friends.
Shop in charity shops.
Rent your clothes.
Mend your clothes.
Give your clothes to charity shops.
Recycle your old and holey clothes at recycling bins.

Class Activity: Make the Supply Chain through Arts and Craft and Drama.

Resources.
Paper
Pencils
Pens
Toy plane, ship, truck (draw or make them)
Cardboard

Assign kids into 7 groups and give them a country each. Spread the groups around the classroom.
Farmers- Africia
Supplier- China
Factory/ Garment Workers- Bangladesh
Warehouse Workers- Sri Lanka
Penny's staff- Ireland
The Adults- Their home.
Ask each group to create the setting of where they work through arts and crafts and costume design.

The teacher can give themselves a small object (get creative) to represent their Tshirt. Walk slowly along the supply chain demonstrating that your 10 euro Tshirt is being transported around the world.

Then ask your kids to look up at the world map on the white board. Using a pointer, show the children exactly where their Tshirt traveled around the world before it got in your classroom.

Remind kids to never bin their clothes.

To find out more about the Rags to Riches Workshop, click on the link: https://ragstorichesworksh.wixsite.com/website-1/post/primary-school-workshop

How does the clothing industry harm biodiversity explain simply for kids (swipe across)

Followed by 5 tips for adults to reduce our negative impact on biodiversity.

Once I explained this lesson, J took it upon herself to create this bio diverse world by using her toy animals and foraging in the back garden to collect grass and branches. By doing this it is reinforcing the lesson in her memory.

The clothing industry is having a huge negative impact on our environment from clothing production to how we get rid of our clothes. Fast fashion is instilling a throwaway attitude in society. Teaching children from a young age about societal and environmental problems and providing children with upcycling skills can help us to reduce our environmental impact.

What is a Charity Shop?

A Charity Shop is a shop who is run by a charity. It usually sells clothes, books and household items which have been donated to the shop from a member of the public. The charity shop sell these donated items in order to make money for their charity.

Benefits of Donating to a Charity Shop.

You are helping the charity to make money.
You are helping other people who may want to use your unwanted clothes.
You are stopping clothes from being binned and ending up in landfills. Once clothes are in landfills they release CO2 with leads to climate change and Microplastics also end up in our oceans, killing fish.
Donating makes you feel good by knowing that you are helping other people and the environment.
Activity for the Classroom: Create a clothing collection bin and Have a poster competition to decorate the bin.

Resources Needed:
A big cardboard/plastic or wooden box
A2 Paper
Colouring supplies

Ask you class to create a poster and a slogan for the clothing collection bin.
Pick some poster to decorate the box.
Before each school holiday as children if they have any clothes to donate to the box which will be given to charity.

To find our more about The Rags to Riches Primary School Workshop, click on the link below: https://ragstorichesworksh.wixsite.com/website-1/post/primary-school-

Introducing sewing/applique to kids.

This is such a fun way to teach sewing skills to children and introduce them to upcycling.
Most schools already have a supply of felt, and these owl creatures can be made from left overs scraps of felt.

If you would like to do this with younger children I would recommend using fabric glue instead of using an applique needle an thread.
Learning outcomes:
Sewing skills
Upcycling
Concentration
Creativity
Hand eye coordination
An appreciation for clothes.

These owls can be added to Tshirts, made into teddies or keyrings. The possibilities are endless.

Head over to my blog to find out the resources needed and the method.
Link in bio

Be sure to tag me in your creations.

Pom Pom Bookmark's for Primary School Kids.

This activity is super fun to do. All you need is a fork, some wool and a blunt needle (optional).

In a classroom setting, I would recommend this activity for age 9+, as the kids have more refined motor skills and hand-eye coordination, which will make it easier for teachers to coordinate.

This activity is great for any parent with a child who can tie their shoelaces and would like to spend quality time crafting with their child.

This activity is great for teaching kids about where wool comes from and it is a good introduction to upcycling. I know in Ireland, most houses have left over wool stores away.

Tag someone who would LOVE to try these.

Printing.

A fun and messy way for kids to upcycle and spruce up old clothes.

While doing this activity, children gain a better understanding and appreciation for how clothes are made.

Resources Needed:

Acrylic paint
Sponges
Paint brushes
Old top (or any old piece of clothing)

(This activity works best on denim with acrylic paint.
However, we substituted acrylic paint with poster paint which will wash out. Therefore, we made a cape which will tie around the neck and be used as a costume)

Yesterday was World Ocean Day.
We had a discussion about how plastics from washing and binning our clothes can end up in our oceans and how sea creatures can confuse micro plastics for food and eat them, which can make our them very sick.

Inspired by our conversation, we grabbed an old box, some paints, pencils, scissors, thread, kinetic sand and a shell and made this beautiful 3D plastic free ocean.

Today is World Ocean Day.

In this activity, children will learn how cleaning our clothes can harm our oceans and environment, but by making a few small changes we can reduce our environmental impact.

Activity: Print making sea creatures on old denim clothing.

What happens when we bin our clothes?

When we bin our clothes they end up in landfill, just like when we throw our rubbish in the bin. Millions of tonnes of clothes end up in landfill or are incinerated each year. One tonne is the weight of one car, so think of the weight of millions of cars. That's a lot of clothes!

In Ireland, around 225,000 tonnes of clothes end up in our landfills. Many clothes are made up of plastic. Once they clothes end up in landfill they cannot decompose/breakdown. So they stay on the earth for hundreds of years.

This causes problems for our wildlife and our plants. Clothes take up space so animals have no where to live and plants can't grow. Sometimes the animals confuse the clothes for food and this makes them sick. Plastic from clothes end up in our oceans and it harms our sea life. Plastic release C02 into the air and this causes global warming. Woolen clothes release methane. Coloured clothes are coloured using chemicals. These chemicals can get into our rivers and oceans and make animals sick.

We can stop this from happening. Almost all of our clothes can be recycled.

What to do when you do not want your clothes to reduce our environmental impact?
Give our clothes to charity shops.
Swap our clothes with family and friends.
Sell and rent our clothes on clothing apps.
Mend our clothes if they have holes and loose seems.
Give our old and holey clothes to a recycling center.

Activity: Sewing a Button onto Old Fabric or Jacket

Resources Needed:
Button
Sewing Needle
Thread
Fabric

By teaching your children the basics of sewing, they have the skills to do basic and the most repairs that our clothes need; sewing on a button, fixing a hole. It may also inspire them to develop these skills to do more advanced things such as design their own clothes and use their creativity to use other form of clothing design such as knitting. By doing so, will reduce our environmental impact.

To find our about Rags to Riches Workshop, click on the link below:
https://ragstorichesworksh.wixsite.com/website-1/post/primary-school-workshop