Math, sciences, and knitting. It's all part of the curriculum for an East Oahu school for boys and girls.
At the Honolulu Waldorf School in Niu Valley, second grade boys and girls sit side by side learning how to crochet.
It's part of the arts curriculum called handwork. teachers say the idea is to help the children develop their thinking by using their hands and create something practical.
"It really integrates the right and left side of the brain. They're involved in problem solving, they have to begin with a ball of yarn and imagine what it would look like when it's finished," says Frances Altwies, handwork teacher.
Handwork classes are twice a week. first grade is knitting, second grade is crocheting, by fifth grade they're knitting socks, all the way to eighth grade, when they learn to use a sewing machine and make aloha shirts.
Teachers say academics are important, but it also helps to learn to apply them creatively.
"It's really good to have ideas or very good to have information but unless you have the capacity to take that information and work it in a new way, we're not gonna be able to solve the problems that we're faced with today," says Altwies.
Eighth grader Niklas Vonderhaar has built up quite a collection from all his handwork classes. He admits he didn't exactly embrace the idea at first.
"I remember it being a little bit odd, but after a while, you just kind of get into it after a while, it seems kind of normal," says Niklas Vonderhaar, eighth-grader.
Normal, even now that he's playing safety for the Pac-5 football team.
"Did it help you playing football you think?," says Manolo.
"No, I don't think so," says Vonderhaar.
But it does come in handy to have the skills.
"I have sewed some things up shorts and stuff, that's about it," says Terrence Ozaki, eighth-grader.
"Did you enjoy that?," says Manolo.
"No, not really -laughs," says Ozaki.
Not necessarily enjoyable, but still, handy.
