Weaving

Recently the children in my class have been weaving with paper, felt and wool. I start the children off with simple paper weaving, then felt weaving and then I move them onto string weaving on a weaving loom.

To make the felt mat, you need an A4 piece of felt and felt strips. Fold the A4 piece in half lenght ways and starting from the folded end cut straight lines up to the top making sure you stop before the edge. My slits were about 1 inch apart. This is the same technique used when making a paper lantern. Next give the children strips of different coloured felt and show them how to weave those in. I used a stapler or pegs to secure the felt strips in place while weaving. After all the strips have been weaved in, sew the edges. This is Little-N's mat, he decided to make a pattern with his colours.

Those children who were successful on weaving a felt mat soon moved onto making a weaving loom. I decided that I want each child to have their own loom they can work on when they wish [instead of just one classroom loom]. I made a cardboard loom for each child following instructions found here. The older children made their own looms with a few directions from me. Everyone seems to doing a bit of weaving daily. I'm using all my left over yarn from knitting projects in my weaving loom and its nice to see how I can have bits of all my projects in one weaved mat.