Our next book for our summer program was Weaving a Rainbow by Georgia Ella Lyon. This book goes through the process of how a woman raises sheep, shears them, cards and spins the wool, dyes the yarn, and weaves it at a loom.
For our projects, the 2-5 year olds wove a variety of materials onto a pre-made cardboard loom. We had made the looms out of recycled cardboard: cereal boxes, frozen pizza boxes, cracker boxes, etc. Slits were cut in the top and bottom, about1 inch apart and yarn was wound around the cardboard. This was done before the class so that they were ready for weaving when the children and their caregivers got there.
Then we had a huge supply of materials ready to weave: yarn, ribbon, Mardi Gras beads, colored wire, felt strips, etc and they wove "over, under, over, under" to complete a very colorful, textured piece of art. And of course, for this age group, nothing would be complete without gluing something on, so we got out the glue and many of them glued silk flowers to finish them off.
The 6 and 7 year olds took a piece of paper and folded it 2 times, creating 4 squares. They colored each square a different color with watercolor markers. I had plastic leaf prints that I had bought from Sax that they used to print onto each square, using silver printing ink.
The 8 and up group did a Pollock-ish project. They turned their papers
over first and drew lines on the back so that they would know where to cut their strips for weaving. Then they were taken outside to splatter paint 2 pieces of paper with tempera paint. We mainly used fluorescent colored paint for this. Once they had 2 pieces painted, they came back into the museum and they used blow dryers to dry their papers.
over first and drew lines on the back so that they would know where to cut their strips for weaving. Then they were taken outside to splatter paint 2 pieces of paper with tempera paint. We mainly used fluorescent colored paint for this. Once they had 2 pieces painted, they came back into the museum and they used blow dryers to dry their papers. 
When their papers were dry, they cut the papers apart and started weaving them back together. They used masking tape to hold them together.
These turned out amazing!! They were very proud of their paintings!
I just discovered your blog.
ReplyDeleteI love the Pollack project.
Glad you found me! The Pollock project was so much fun and my little 4 year olds loved splattering paint everywhere! I should have taken pictures of them cleaning the floor afterwords- I think they had just as much with that as they did with the painting!
ReplyDeleteNice blog ppost
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