Book Club, Boys’ Edition: “Masterpiece” by Elise Broach

Choosing a tee-shirt design

After that we split up to work on a t-shirt design.  Each boy snagged some paper and a pen and worked on a plan, and ten they got together to see which elements they could put together for one cohesive picture.  The guys did a great job of working together to plan one picture that would suit everyone.

Then, having prepped their shirts, they grabbed their bleach pens and went to work.  First they drew the design on their shirts with chalk, and then they traced over their lines with the pen.  We let them dry overnight, and then washed and dried them to set the bleach.

While the shirts were drying, the boys talked about how friends treat each other.  They made a list of things that friends should and shouldn’t do, and then we wrote it up as a contract for each boy to sign.  Even after we finished, they continued to think of things that they wanted to have added to the contract.  They were surprisingly excited about it!

After that, we made friendship necklaces out of washers and shoelaces.  Sounds strange, I know, but they really liked it – and the metal washers on the black string looked quite masculine.  They used Sharpies to decorate the washers to fit their theme, and My Little Man refused to remove his for days.