I taught my then 10 year old son to sew and then he made a nine patch table runner - two actually mostly on his own. Because of his age I cut the materials - though he very much wanted to... :). Now that he is twelve he is allowed to cut the fabric as long as I'm right there with him. Has he made mistakes - of course, but he did the majority of them on 'cheap' fabric and is getting better. I let him go to my stash and choose whatever he wanted - do you know how hard that was for me? to take the chance of giving up some of MY stash? :) - alas and alack though - he matches quite nicely.
Then I taught an older woman how to sew the same table runner - by SHOWING her how to cut and then letting her do it (she already knew how to sew) and then telling her what I thought was the best method. She had a blast.