Hippies and Happy

This year's creation - probably won't look any better on.

It's a tradition to tie dye t-shirts for the 6th grade EFT trip.  Last Thursday was the big event.  It took a day of of soaking shirts in the soda ash (in the school washing machine), eight or nine parents, four hours of work on the tarps outside, and in the end 140 shirts were completed.  I don't know what it is about tie dye, I don't like the look of it, but it's always exciting and fun. 

Before we have the student rubber band their shirts, we have them all watch a cheesy video on how-to tie dye, with a aging (long gray hair) hippie, who after each demonstration repeats "leave in the plastic bag for 12, preferably 24 hours, before you rinse".  Every time she said that, one of my teaching partners would tell the kids, "I have a note with all the instructions for you".  After about the 4th time, everyone in the room would repeat the lines.

The best part of the video is after the shirts are rinsed and the rubber bands are removed, they hold up the masterpiece and everyone in the room would Oooo and Ahhh.  It sounded like a crowd watching a fireworks show.  I was just sorry that we sent all the shirts home for the final steps.  We would have had quite the event if we had revealed all 140 of them at school.  Oooooo, Ahhhhh!