The child development and fashion classes at Union-Endicott High School (UEHS) combined their talents for a multi-grade Monster Sewing and Story Collaborative Project. Inspired by contemporary artist Dave de Vries, who transforms children's drawings into realistic paintings, this initiative connected high school students with kindergarteners from Charles F. Johnson (CFJ) Elementary School. 
To kick off the project, high school students asked the kindergarteners to draw designs for monsters. The younger students were given a blank monster template to color and personalize with additional components. They also wrote down character traits for their monsters on a worksheet.
In Brittany Sharpe’s fashion class, UEHS students took these drawings and brought the monsters to life as soft sculptures (stuffed animals). Through this process, the students honed their sewing skills, learning techniques such as the running stitch, sewing on buttons, creating stitch-and-flip stuffed animals, and adding decorative elements like hair and facial features.
Simultaneously, students in Lisa Chavez’s child development class used the same monster designs and character traits to create illustrated children’s books. This part of the project taught them about child literacy, the steps in writing a book, and the various parts of a children’s book.
The project's highlight was the visit by UEHS students to CFJ kindergarteners, where they presented the children with their custom-made stuffed monsters and read the stories they had created for them.