I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the time I did a fiber arts summer camp at my daughter’s school. It was so much fun exposing kids to knitting, crochet, cross stitch, weaving and other fun things to do with yarn and string.
Teaching weaving to kids is pretty easy because they usually get some exposure to it naturally in crafts they do at school with woven paper. Most kids by first or second grade will understand the “over under” concept. It’s great for building fine motor skills and learning about repetition. It’s also super calming and a great way to use little scraps of yarn or strips of fabric you might have in your craft stash.
I love to start with a nature walk and have kids pick out a stick with a v shape. Then you can learn to weave on a stick, which is a cool thing to display.
Weaving with straws is another easy way to get kids started with weaving, and with this tutorial from One Little Project kids can easily and quickly make a colorful bangle bracelet.
Making a loom out of a piece of cardboard is a classic (if you don’t know how to do this, check out the tutorial from Childhood 101), and while you can just weave on it in a normal way, I love this project from Art Teacher in 101, where she uses a cardboard loom to weave a colorful house. This is extra cute because you can add buttons or little pieces of felt to be the windows and doors, and every kid is sure to make a unique project.
And once you’ve got cardboard weaving down, there’s no end to the things you can try. Art Bar has a great doodle weaving project that I really want to drop everything and make right now because it’s such an easy way to combine leftover bits of yarn and play with weaving in a way that isn’t just making straight lines. So fun for kids and adults!
