5 Tips to Get Started WEAVING

Weaving is, by far, one of my most favorite lessons of the year! Once the kids get the rhythm of it, they love it too!

Here are my top 5 tips to try weaving for your next lesson:

1. Invest in good quality cardboard looms with wide-notches.

Kids can get frustrated if the process seems too tricky or takes too long to master. Good quality looms make a world of difference in their frustration level. I often overhear, "This is easier than it looks." when I use the "good" looms. I've had some of my looms for over 10 years, and they still look and work great!


2. Teach students the correct vocabulary from the beginning: loom, warp, weft, weaving.

www.weaverandloom.com

Having them learn and apply art vocabulary is a great confidence booster in the Art Room. And its always fun when they know words that their parents don't!







3. Pre-cut your strings.

I have small plastic boxes filled with pre-cut and pre-sorted strings. This makes the process of picking out new strings so much faster, so they can get back to their weaving, as quickly as possible.


4. Have them check their weavings with you on a regular basis.

On the first day of weaving, they can choose 4 strings. When they are done with those strings, they have to visit me at a designated table and we have to check for "oops strings" - those strings that wanted to go over or under, but...OOPS...they went the wrong way!
On day two, we up the number to 6 and they are THRILLED! On day three, they can weave 8 strings before they visit me, but if they see one of those "oops strings" before they visit me, they can try to fix it themselves. And let me tell you, they are so proud when they figure out where a mistake is before I do! :-)


5. Make a few weavings yourself to understand the process and to have examples of many pattern possibilities.

In the beginning, we talk a lot about two-color patterns, like red-blue-red-blue. But as they weave more, they get ambitious. Maybe a three-color pattern, like red-white-blue-red-white-blue or red-red-red-white-white-white-blue-blue-blue, or maybe a six color pattern like the color wheel, or even a pattern that repeats with ANOTHER pattern! Their ideas are endless, but if you have some examples already made, you can easily show them what a pattern may look like ahead of time.

My 2nd graders are excellent weavers and you can see all their pieces in our Artsonia gallery.

And in the words of Journey, "Don't Stop Be-weave-ing"!
~Amy

BONUS! BONUS! BONUS!

While my Word of the Week is intended for my SMARTBoard, I also love having a consistent visual on display in my Art Room.  Here is a photo of the empty wall and as we learn each Word of the Week, I'll add the word to the colorful display.  
So, in addition to my SMARTBoard file for my Word of the Week presentation, I also would love to give you the signs I'll display each week. They are all yours!

pdf - Word of the Week display
Have a great day!
~Amy

Word of the Week 2012-2013

One of my favorite traditions in my classroom is our "Artist of the Week" presentations. For each class, grades 1-6, after they clean-up, we have a short interactive adventure on our SMARTBoard. This is great for a couple of reasons. One, it gives me an opportunity to share information about artists that I wouldn’t spend an entire unit on, but I still want to expose my students to. And two, it really gets the kids to clean up quickly!

Each week, the presentation is essentially the same format. At the end of class, a student is chosen to “drive” the SMARTBoard and they get to pull all the tabs and tap all the links. The Artist of the Week slides always include the artist’s name, biographical information and lots of visuals of their work.

This presentation has evolved over the years and I’ve loved sharing so much art history with my students. 

The first year, I used artists’ birthdates as a starting point so that when October 8^th came around, we learned about Faith Ringgold and at the end of October, we learned about Hokusai. The second year, we focused on just American artists and we travelled alphabetically through most of the fifty states and talked about the Wyeth family legacy, Matt Groening, Moneta Sleet Jr., and Jackson Pollock. The third year, I used the “Know the Artist” posters as a jumping off point to look at famous artists alphabetically so we moved from Milton Avery to Andy Warhol and beyond. Last year, I focused more on art criticism activities and used the Usbourne Book of Famous Paintings. It is a great resource for any art room, really gave us some great information and images in a child-friendly format and naturally flowed into a SMART Notebook file.

So, that brings us to this year! I’m so excited to be finished with this large file. As you can image, these kinds of technology endeavors take quite a bit of time to create and build, but I guess that’s what summer is for, right? I’ve always wanted to have a Word Wall like the traditional classroom teachers do, but wasn’t sure about the logistics. Now I’ve got one and it’s interactive! Please check out my file and download it from the SMART Exchange or pass it on to other art teachers you know and love: Word of the Week - Notebook File

Also, if you're interested, I've submitted my other Artist of the Week presentations to the SMART Exchange as well. Or you can check out my pbworks website at: Big Bend Art for a full listing of all of our Artists of the Week.

Enjoy!