Four Little Pixies: weaving in the woods

Today was my day for teaching co-op class. I chose sheep and wool as my theme since this is the time of year for sheep shearing, and Waldorf kids tend to atleast have knowledge of handwork involving wool. It seemed like a natural choice. We had a really good time talking about wool, sheep, and craftiness. I brought some things that were made from wool like some yarn, a pig that I knitted for Indigo, a teddy bear needle felted by Clover, a wool coaster woven by Willow, and my beautiful felted wool bowl that Vickie made for me. We passed everything around so that everyone could enjoy the wooliness.

I read the book _Weaving a Rainbow_ by George Ella Lyon, and we sang "BaaBaa Black Sheep". We also played the game "hot potato" with a stuffed sheep toy. Nova and I sang "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and played the bells while the kids passed the sheep. I think that they had a good time.

Clover showed the kids how to weave on a lap loom which was a wonderful introduction to our craft for the day: weaving a bookmark. Tim helped me cut out strips of cardboard, and then I notched and "warped" them with embroidery floss to make the looms. After a few simple instructions, everyone was able to weave "over, under, over, under". I was so proud of all of the kids! They were excellent weavers!!

After weaving and lunch time, the kids had an amazing creek walk with Carrie. They used nets to catch all sorts of creek critters, and Carrie helped identify the different bugs and animals. We got to see mosquito wolf larvae, a dragonfly "baby", May fly larvae, a salamander, and a crawdaddy. There were several other "bugs", too, but I can't remember what all of them were called. The kids loved it!! It was the best impromptu Science class ever.