Sew Much Fun

In the home room we have created a new sewing area which the children have shown a great interest in. Today we had a discussion on a variety of the resources available and explored these by touching, naming and there purpose. The children could confidently identify lots of things connected with sewing:

“Needles are jaggy”

“scissors can be sharp”

“Wool is nice and soft and squishy”

“thread is hard”

The children were keen to try and thread a needle so with great patience , concentration and hand and eye co-ordination each child had a go. During this time we talked about the whole in the needle is called an eye and when you thread you put a knot at end so the stitch stays in. The older children were able to complete this and were excited to try to do a stitch on the sewing table. They listened well to instructions and were able to follow this with little support. They helped each other when got a bit tangled and commented on each other’s stitches.

“Look at your big one”

“ you have done lots”

The younger children were able to thread the large shaped buttons using laces.

The children were unsure what the wheel, block and trees were for so I demonstrated weaving, encouraging them to take part. All the children enjoyed the weaving and had fun experimenting with the the different coloured wool and objects.

“ it looks like a rainbow”

” I like these trees”

Why not try exploring simple weaving techniques at home using ribbon or paper. This is a great activity for hand and eye co-ordination and a good way for building up fine motor skills.

3D Paper Sculpture Techniques

Today in the Studio Room we are learning a new skill. We are learning to make 3D paper sculptures. Today was all about creating a “fringe”

We each picked a piece of paper and a pair of scissors.
We learned that to create a fringe we needed to cut the paper half in strips, but only half way up the page, leaving a band. The higher we cut the longer the strip we created. We were very careful when using our scissors to cut.

It was a bit tricky at first to keep the band at the top and not cut the paper in half. But we soon got the hang of it and made of fringe snips in lots of different sizes of paper.

We made big ones

Middle size

and even tiny ones.
Once we mastered the technique of fringing we moved on to a new technique of rolling and folding.

We used our fringed paper to create, fringe people, robots, lions, octopus, and funny faces.

We drew on our designs then folded the paper and used glue to keep the edges together.

We were proud of our finished results. It was fun engaging with a new learning experience and seeing where our imagination would take us today.
Next week we will be learning a new 3D paper sculpture technique.