Build fine motor skills with a pretty weaving project! Use a variety of colored yarn and our R2195 Little Shape Beads for this fun activity.Weaving can get a bit tedious unless you jazz it up a bit! That’s where our R2195 Little Shape Beads come in! Thread the beads through the yarn at various sections to add colorful decorations to the woven lines.
Age: 6-10
Duration: 20-30 minutes
You’ll Need:
• R5601 Plastic Lacing Needles
• Paper plate
• Scissors
• Colorful yarn
• Ruler
• Black marker
Make the most of your weaving projects with R5601 Plastic Lacing Needles! Designed for little fingers to safely thread yarn while practicing an essential fine motor exercise.
Place the beads in a bowl in the center of a group of students. They can all share the bowl as they decorate. I used a 12-inch ruler to help create the notches for the weaving. Any ruler larger than the diameter of the paper plate will work fine.
Place the ruler across the paper plate. Draw a short line at the top and bottom edge of the paper plate along the ruler length. From the first set of lines drawn, twist the plate 90 degrees. Draw in lines for the notches. Rotate the paper plate ten times in total to make an even number of notches all the way around.
Cut along each line about the width of the rim.
To make the weaving loom’s warp strings, first attach the end of the yarn through the notches. Loop back to the center and secure with a knot. From the knot, thread the string through the nearest notch and draw it across the plate to the opposite side. Continue in either a clockwise or counter clockwise pattern all the way around the plate.
Secure the end with a knot. Check out the video below for a detailed look at the weaving process!
Go under then over each consecutive warp string. Once you make a full loop, be sure to skip over 2 strings. This alternates the pattern of the weave. Change colors by snipping the end off one yarn color and tying a knot for the next color to continue the weave. As you weave through, thread a Little Shape Bead through the yarn at certain points.
You can notice how the pattern of the weave changes from layer to layer. Some of the layers I decided to go over twice then I alternated the pattern. Finish off just before the warp strings reach the rim of the plate. All done!
Weave a wonderful work of art! What are your techniques while weaving? Show us your weaving projects by sending photos. Contact us through the contact form. We’ll feature your art in one of our posts!
How d’you take the weave off the plate??
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How do you finish this off if you prefer to remove from the paper plate loom?
Hi Kat, thanks for your comment! You can cut the loops that form the “loom” part of the weaving plate. Cut the yarn at edge of the paper plate. You will be left with two yarn ends, so tie those together. Do NOT tug or pull at these yarn ends as you tie them together, since this might warp the shape of your weaving. Tying the ends together in this way will hold the design in place. Hope that helps! 🙂
Reblogged this on momtoldmetowriteabook and commented:
Great craft project to try with little kiddos!
Great idea, why didn’t I think of that. Thanks for the inspiration.
So gotta bookmark this for the grandbabykins that is 7. He keeps wanting to use my real needles to sew and this is something that would let him without using the small sharp needles. And, he loves playing with my yarn and beads. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Love to hear this, PeaBea! If your grandson ever tries one of our projects, please post up pics or let us know so we can do a feature post on it and share with the rest of our fans. 🙂 Thank you so much for the comment!