Kindergarten: Creativity through Weaving

Froebel occupations are for kids to be able to create willingly. For the Wednesday Kindergarten after school UOI class extension of the unit How the World Works, we focused on the Froebel occupation: weaving, the interlacing of materials to form an item. In the beginning, the students were led to see how weaving was found in nature — the spider weaving its web, to the weaver bird weaving its nest, to the caterpillar weaving its cocoon. Using magnifying glasses, students were asked to investigate the patterns used on woven materials like socks, scarves, gloves, handkerchiefs, etc; and to draw the patterns as how they see them. Moving on, the students were taught the basic method of weaving. Using this weaving skill, the students were able to make woven paper pictures, nature portraits, paper baskets.

It might be that Froebel called such skill-based activities as “occupations” in hopes that what was learned might become something that students might hopefully use professionally when they grow up. It’s never too early to start letting kids do some weaving.