My niece is only eight and I give the snippets/thinner scraps to her. She's been practicing with her hand stitching at home. When she comes to my house, she'll bring her "stringies" as she likes to call them and see if she can match up to other pieces. She has resorted to using her little fingers as measurements. The strings that she thinks are too small she knots up and braids and has her mom press and makes coasters. Her pinky finger is about a 1/4" wide. She's very clever and uses that as her 1/4" seam allowance.