Weaving

Giving children the opportunity to weave helps them to develop many skills. 

Why I love weaving for children - 

Pincer Grip
This activity helps to develop the strength between the thumb and forefinger. 
Children naturally practise this as they hold onto the ribbon or similar item being threaded.
This is also a pre-writing skill!!!! 

Hand & Eye Coordination
Weaving helps develop hand-eye coordination because encourages children to use the visual information received to coordinate the movement of the hands. 

Concentration
It isn't an uncommon sight to see children really concentrate when they weave. 
There is often silence as they carefully move the material between the rods. 

Creativity
Children can get very creative when it comes to weaving. There are really no right or wrong ways of doing it. They might choose to use different objects or create patterns. 

_________________________________________

How we did this activity - 

Firstly I raided the kitchen cupboards for basic cooling racks. 

Of course you can use anything that children could safely use to weave. 

I set my niece and nephew to work by threading some ribbon between the gaps 

of the wire cooling racks. This is quite an easy option, however, if you'd like to make it more challenging then consider different objects or thinner ribbon with smaller gaps to thread. 

We also went around the house finding things that demonstrated weaving. 

Here is a laundry basket and a stool that have all used weaving. 

Here is an example of weaving on a larger scale and using scarfs! 

Taking weaving further! 

* Have children learn how to plat hair
*Consider simple sewing tasks
*Create patterns.

Need more? 
Picklebums - A beginners Attempt at Weaving With Kids - click here
Learn with Play at Home - Tinsel Weaving - click here

_________________________________

Be sure to follow Laughing Kids Learn on Pinterest, Twitter and Google+