I have been asked by one of the elementary schools here to give a workshop in May to 50 students from area schools. My choice of what I do with them. I have decided that whatever I do decide it will be totally a recycled material craft.
I have been doing massive online searches for recycled material weaving for children, but am not really coming up with anything that gets my attention.
I think I have decided to try a simple basket with them, grades 4 through 8. I quickly worked with newspaper and plastic last night, and this is what I came up with. Very crude, they only have two hours to complete the project. Mark thinks it will be too difficult for the younger kids. I am not sure, I have been away from children for too long, and am not sure of their capabilities. I could just use round reed, but would rather not, I will have to come up with a better way of rolling the newspaper tighter. If anyone has any suggestions I would very much appreciate them. I do think it is nicer if they go home with something, not just a wall hanging.
Newspaper reeds and cling wrap warp, twine woven basket, unfinished. The cling wrap comes from my local grocery store. They have been saving it for me for my rug experiments that for now are at a standstill. I am being over run with boxes of used plastic, but will get to it soon.
1 comment:
Five, I used to teach classes at our local art center, and I worked for many years as a social worker/special ed person here.
I think grade 8's would have no problem with the plastic/newspaper,but I'm not sure
about the 4-6. Very neet idea.
I have done projects with that age group using recycled plastic bottles cut into strips, but the "runs with scissors" factor made it a bit too dangerous. , ie the kids needed to cut the bottles into strips. I've not used the type of plastic you are using, Much safer.
When I've had kids do clay weaving like that, I've purchased a bunch of chop sticks and rolled those tightly in newspaper.
Depends how long you have with each group but i made them up ahead of time for kids younger than 12 to save time.
I really like the idea, and It's great when kids go home with something.
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