Picnic Bug Weavings

First-grade weaving.  What a joy! I really like showing these minis how to weave and I have found that it fascinates them. I do something different every year so here is the rundown for 2015.

First, we did a little pre-test (first weaving) to see where all students are at.  They had some paper that they made at a station in a previous class so we used them for their weavings. The paper was a little warped from the paint but it they all ironed out nicely!  I also tried something new using different materials for weaving such as ribbons, wire, and strings.

Students created their weaving and brought them up to me.  I mounted them onto a background as they wrote their name on a name tag. These actually turned out to be sweet little works of art.  I'm was thinking they would just be process pieces, but they were display-worthy.

For our second weaving, I decided to have each class work on something different for a full display.  Music was doing a concert with the theme of picnics.  I chose to make that our theme too! One of my classes created paper weavings as place mats for their 'picnic lunch'.  I did this last year as well (see post)

The rest were approached the same way.  Day one the students did a weaving at the end they cut out a shape and glued it to the back of their weaving. So for example, below a student would cut out a large apple shape and glue it to the back of the weaving for it to dry.

Day two, students cut out the weaving around the 'tracer' glued to the back. This allowed the weaving to stay together but also for us to give the weaving a different shape (a butterfly, a fruit, a circle for a bug body... )  This could work for any shape for sure.

I really enjoyed the look of the fruit weavings and butterfly weavings, but my favorite was the bug weavings below. 

When the weaving was cut out, the students created these great faces with big bug eyes and so much character!  All of the paper for this was scraps from other projects. Strips of paper from cutting down larger sheets. I showed them how to curl and fold to give texture and each bug turned out so different, and so dang cute! 

The very best part is I had a talented volunteer, Kelly VonBank, offer to come in and display.  This wonderful woman was there all day making what could go down as he best display in the history of Hassan, at least since I've been teaching there. This was in perfect time for the 1st-grade music performances.  Parents were all over this school wanting to see the amazing performance of their minis, and all the kids were excited to share the work that they made in the art studio. 

I made time for our 1st-grade students to also venture out the large bulletin board to see their artwork on display.  They were excited to find their art, but also thrilled to look at all the other students beautiful creations too!