3rd grade plate weaving

 Weaving is one of those things that I wish I had learned in grad school.  When your studying to be  an art teacher you take your theory classes, you take your methods classes, and you take your fine art classes, but the multitude of media you will teach your students is something that, for the most part, you'll have to learn on the job. For me, weaving was definitely an on the job learning experience.  Without all the great art ed blog posts about various types of weaving I don't know how I would've learned everything I have about it!

I got this particular project from Cassie Stephens. She had posted it awhile ago but is actually posting a whole series right now on weaving. The link for the original project is here: However, she recently posted a whole new tree plate weaving post that you can check out here

The link for her weaving series is here: 

The project took 5-6, 40 minute periods.  The first period was dedicated to viewing and discussing landscape paintings and how artists create a sense of depth in their paintings by using value, scale, and detail.  I then showed the kids how to mix tints of white with green to make the grass and they painted their plates. 

On day two the kids added details with Sharpie markers and then modge podged the plates to give them a nice sheen. 

Day three consisted of making the notches in the plate and then creating the "tree" loom. In Cassie's post, I believed she used a template to show the kids where to cut.  I tried this but found that my kids didn't need it.  It was easier for me to just demonstrate making 8-10 notches in the top and 2 on the bottom, centered on their landscape.  That was, of course, after I explained what a "notch" was, lol.

 On day four and five the kids weaved.  I have a visualizer hooked up to my computer and smartboard, and I found it using it was perfect for this lesson. Having the ability to show the kids how to weave, tie knots, tie on new threads and knot the final thread close-up really helped them to understand what to do.

 Day six was a catch-up for the kids that were absent or who just work really slowly!