Weaving With Little Ones

The beginning of November always has me thinking of Thanksgiving. And Thanksgiving makes me think about doing weaving projects. (Yeah, I also think about all of my favorite foods .......) Pretty sure back in the day I was weaving paper place mats when I was in elementary school.

Anyway...... I wanted something really simple for my kindergarten and first grade students. This project goes back YEARS! Pretty sure from when I was a scout leader. What I told them was: this was an intro to weaving. Also, a great intro to sewing because of the up and down motion. We used plastic canvas, which was donated to the art room along with plastic lacing donated by my sister. Which I lugged home from New York last time I was there, and I wonder why the TSA always leaves notices in my suitcase???

 

Anyway......... I was able to cut each sheet into 26 bookmarks. They each measured about 1" by 5". Early finishers in 4th grade grade and I cut the plastic lacing about 7" long.

 

 I started the lesson by reading the book The Goat in the Rug. I loved asking the students what they thought the book was about after telling them the title. They just assumed a goat is wrapped up in a rug. They also enjoyed the fact that the book was told from the goat's perspective as she explains the steps required to turn her wool into a rug.

Then I demonstrated the process on my Elmo, which is a camera that projects onto my white board, how to weave the plastic lace through the plastic canvas. Not gonna lie, I wasn't sure my kindergarten students were going to be capable of this, so I was pleasantly surprised with the awesome results.
I had students take one piece of lacing at a time to cut down on waste. If they take all the pieces they need at once, they tend to lose them. Also, my students have pocket folders to put unfinished work in, so I didn't worry too much about putting names on the projects. You could have students put them in envelopes with their names or wrap them in paper with their names.

 

 

 This first grade class loved just sitting on the floor weaving together.

This project cost nothing to do with my students-which is the greatest thing there is. But if you aren't quite as lucky as me, you can find the plastic canvas at Michael's for .69 cents a sheet and their brand of plastic lacing for about $3 a spool. Overall not a bad deal. Also, consider sending out an email in the event staff or parents have some of this stuff they would like to get rid of.

This project was extremely cart friendly as at one point last week I needed to be on a cart due to a controlled lock down.

Thanks for reading and happy Thanksgiving to all!