Last Spring I helped to teach our 4-6year old Kindy-garden children (my Arly's class) how to spindle spin yarn. We began by reading 'Pelle's new Suit" by Elsa Beskow. Their teacher introduced the spindle a few days prior to my lesson, and before long they were standing on their chairs spindling their little hearts away!Naturally some of the children found it easier than others to draft. I made up a little story about a baby Giraffe wanting to stretch his neck as tall as his mama's, so we all practiced stretching out our washed wool locks to make long Giraffe necks! We also had fun playing with the word giraffe, saying giraffe like d(g)raft.. [it's harder to write than to say].. but you get the idea - dgggraft!
Each child had a turn helping me on the wheel, the children tredling whilst i spun a little extra yarn. I wanted them all to have a little skeinlet to dye & make something with.
The following week we dyed the yarn with food-colouring using medicine droppers. They were having so much fun applying the colour, that many of the skeins ended up very deep autumnal colour's with the colour's bleeding & mixing together! i cooked the yarn at home and dried them ready for the next lesson.
I made a little sample the night before class of a nest with little felted eggs. When I arrived the next day, the teacher saw the nests and immediately made up a story on the spot about two little birds living in trees across the field from one another. The two birds met after hearing each other's calls, and decided to make a nest together.After the beautiful & unbelievable apt story, the children finger-knit these little woolen nests & hand-felted their little eggs.
Aren't they just the cleverest little gardeners! & they loved every moment of it.. they do wool-craft every day with their teacher, and are always making colourful rainbow-wool masterpieces.. For me to take them through each step toward making colourful wool was truely a wonderful experience. i wholeheartedly recommend you play with wool in a kindy-class if an opportunity ever comes your way.
Blessings,
michelle
1 comment:
This is so cool, and makes me sad that it had never occurred to me to introduce spinning to the kids when I worked in the nursery. I did teach some knitting and finger weaving stuff to them though.
But now it makes me excited for when I finally have some neices and nephews :)
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