Weaving

I am excited about our current project at Iron Springs. I have reserved a traveling exhibit from the Utah Arts Counsel called Navajo Children: Weaving the Future. It will be on display in our school for one month, starting next week.

All grades from 1 to 5 are deep in weaving projects right now, all involving math, sort of. For my first graders, we are doing paper strip weaving and we're practicing ABC patterns.

The second graders are doing drinking straw weaving to make wrist cuffs (thick bracelets.) I think the over/under pattern is a good brain challenge for them.

The third, fourth and fifth graders are weaving tiny rugs on cardboard looms. We're really stretching our brains on these because we had to do quite a bit of ruler work to set up our patterns and prepare for our warp strings. We even brought in fractions a little bit, as we talked about dividing the rug into half or quarters as we thought up our stripe patterns.

We'll be having a mini arts night to show off the Navajo weaving (and our own creations, whether they are finished or not) on October 8th. This will also be a time to learn about becoming a member of the Friends of artworks for kids! organization. This grassroots group is working hard to save funding for my position, and those of 49 other art teachers across the state of Utah through the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program. I hope we have a great turn out.

I'll post picture of our weaving as we finish up. Look forward to it!